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LIGHTS, SHADOWS, 



AND 



REFLECTIONS 



OF 



WHIGS AND TORIES. 



BY 



A COUNTRY GENTLEMAN. 

7 ' & 



Nullius addictus jurare in verba magistri. — Horatius. 



PHILADELPHIA I 

LEA & BLANCHARD. 
1843. 




>Fr 



GRIGGS & CO., PRINTERS.. 



PREFACE. 



This book was commenced in January 1838, At 
that period I had not read Lord Brougham's u Cha- 
racters of Distinguished Statesmen," nor was that 
work perused by me until after I had finished the cha- 
racters which I had intended to sketch. My reason 
for mentioning this circumstance arises from an appre- 
hension that I might be supposed to entertain the 
vain-glorious desire of entering the lists with Lord 
Brougham. 

Very shortly after the commencement of my task I 
met with a domestic calamity. This suspended the 
undertaking for several months. A second, a third, a 
fourth interruption took place, so that the time ex- 
pended on the book has not been very considerable, as 
perhaps the reader may very soon detect. 

Another excuse can be alleged in palliation of any 
errors I may have fallen into. During the entire pe- 
riod I was occupied in writing these sketches, I was 



( iv ) 

several hundred miles from my library, and being 1 on 
the Continent could not have access to any books in 
the English language. 

My object has been to ascertain if the Tories are 
more deserving of public confidence than the Whigs or 
Radicals, or if all three parties are utterly worthless. 
The Tories are never weary of praising themselves — 
they possess, according to their own account, all the 
religion, all the virtue, all the morality of the coun- 
try. "The Bible is a sealed book to the Cabi- 
net," Lord Melbourne is "a sorry theologian," and 
Lord Morpeth "no better than Pontius Pilate." 

On the other hand, the Duke of Newcastle is " the 
wise, the just, and the illustrious," Mr. John Hardy is 
one of the greatest orators living, Mr. Emerson Ten- 
nent, and Mr. Frederic Shaw are statesmen of the 
highest order. Since the Irish Municipal Bill has 
passed, Mr. Shaw has shrunk to his proper dimensions, 
but in compensation Professor Butt has surpassed De- 
mosthenes and Cicero, 

" And tramples on the Greek and Roman glory." 

In consequence of Whiggish misrule the Empire is 
doomed to destruction. We have been outwitted by 
France, we have succumbed to Russia. We have 
been bullied by America, we have oppressed that most 



( v ) 

respectable Repealer, Mehemet Ali, and we have 
been insulted by those eminent Conservatives, Gove- 
nor Lin, and Kee-Shin; In addition to these proofs 
of Ministerial misconduct, the army is inadequate to 
our necessities, and the navy is only half-manned. 
What remedy is suggested for all those calamities, all 
this disgrace ? The accession of Sir Robert Peel to 
office ; But the worthy Baronet has taken fright at 
half a dozen petticoats, and sounded a retreat. How- 
ever, the Tories are divided in opinion about their 
leader ; for a very large section of the Conservatives 
are clamorous for the deposition of Peel, and the ele- 
vation of Stanley. Further we are told Repeal is to 
be an open question, and Mn O'Connell is to have the 
control of all the Irish estates belonging to Whigs. 
The Ministers are also responsible for all the Rail- 
road accidents, and it is doubtful if they ought not to 
be called to account for the unseasonable weather, 
It happens singularly enough, that whenever Con- 
servative Members of Parliament are hastening to 
town, the wind always blows in their faces, and they 
often encounter a storm. On the other hand, the 
Whigs bask in sunshine, and are always enabled to 
reach town unpelted by the pitiless storm. The ele- 
ments of revolution are certainly abroad. Sir John 
Herschell and Professor Airey should look to this. 



( vi ) 

The only Conservative man of science is Mr. Murphy 
for he invariably prophecies the exact contrary of what 
turns out to be the fact. To conclude the list of cala- 
mities, the Bishops always die at the wrong- time; 
The English judges resign when they find themselves 
unequal to their labours. The Irish judges, on the 
other hand, to save the Bench from pollution, con- 
tinue to retain their seats after they have in a great 
measure survived their faculties. 

I have only to add, that it is my intention to con- 
tinue this review of men and parties to the death of 
William the Fourth, in all comprising a period of se- 
venty years. 



CONTENTS. 



page 



CHAPTER I. 


1760—1765 . . 


9 


n 


II. 


1765 .... 


17 


n 


III. 


Lord Chatham — Lord North — 








Lord Thurlow 


24 


31 


IV. 


Lord Shelburne — Lord Mans- 








field. 


32 


11 


V. 


Coalition Ministry 


38 


11 


VI. 


Ministry of Pitt 


43 


11 


VII. 


Richard Brinsley Sheridan 


49 


11 


VIII. 


Corporation and Test Acts 


56 


11 


IX. 


Regency Question 


59 


11 


X. 


French Revolution 


64 


11 


XI. 


Edmund Burke . 


68 


11 


XII. 


Lord Kenyon . 


74 


11 


XIII. 


Lord Erskine . 


78 


11 


XIV. 


Ireland 


83 


1.1 


XV. 


Bank Restriction Act . 


91 



V1I1 



CONTENTS, 



PAGE 



IlPT] 


5R XVI. 


Addington Ministry — Lord 








Redesdale 


94 


J? 


xvn. 


Lord Colchester . 


98 


>? 


xvin. 


Samuel Whitrread . 


103 


J» 


XIX. 


Lord Nelson 


108 


J» 


XX. 


William Pitt 


111 


?> 


XXI. 


Lord Grenville 


119 


JJ 


XXII. 


Charles James Fox . 


124 


»» 


xxm. 


Ireland — George Ponsonry 


133 


J? 


XXIV. 


John, Philipot Curran 


138 


J? 


XXV. 


William Fletcher . 


146 


5' 


XXVI. 


Henry Grattan 


156 


M 


xxvn. 


John Duke of Bedford 


164 


5> 


xxvrn. 


April, 1807 . 


169 


?? 


XXIX. 


Peninsular War 


172 


5» 


XXX. 


1809 


175 


9* 


XXXI. 


1810 


179 


S* 


XXXII. 


George the Third 


181 



LIGHTS, 

SHADOWS, AND REFLECTIONS 



OP 



WHIGS AND TOEIES. 



CHAPTER I. 

1760—1765. 

The commencement of the reign of George the 
Third was most auspicious. The people were happy, 
prosperous, and contented. A war gloriously con- 
ducted, unstained by aggression or dishonour. At 
home prosperity, both agricultural and mercantile. 
Great Britain dictating to Europe more as a parent 

than a mistress. The scene changed but too soon. 

# # # # * # * # 

It is not my intention to write a biography, or to 
attempt a history ; my object is merely to ascertain if 
the Tories are more worthy of public confidence than 
the Whigs ; or if both parties are utterly worthless. In 
order to attain a knowledge of truth, I have chosen to 
review the conduct of both parties during the last three 
reigns. Much verbal criticism has been wasted in the 
definitions of Whig and Tory. We have been told 
2 



( io ) 

that the Tories of Anne are the Whigs of William the 
Fourth ; the Whigs of Victoria the Jacobites of George 
the First. 

Non nostrum est tantus componere lites. 

The reason I have commenced my review from the 
year 1760 is that, in my opinion, the great character- 
istics of Whiggism and Toryism were then for the 
first time marked and defined. They were not stamp- 
ed, and passed as current coin until the triumph of 
Pitt over Fox in 1784. 

The two great parties have been more consistent 
than has been generally admitted ; individuals have 
changed, but public bodies have not. Many have 
served in both armies, but the tactics, nay, the colours 
and uniforms, of the two conflicting bodies have re- 
mained unchanged. The important distinctions be- 
tween Whig and Tory appear (in my mind) to be as 
follows. The former is anxious that the people shall 
have as much liberty as is compatible with government; 
the latter is intent on the elevation of the Crown, at 
the expense of the people. The Tories wish for an 
enlightened despotism, the Whigs for a stately de- 
mocracy ; and they have actually brought into prac- 
tice the converse of La Fayette's theory — a republic 
with monarchical institutions. The Tories rally round 
the Throne to coerce the people ; the Whigs lead on 
the people to shackle the monarch. The Tories have 
an inordinate love of war, the Whigs an ardent desire 
for peace. The American war in 1772, the French 
war in 1793, might both have been avoided ; for both 
we are indebted to the Tories. The whigs must incur 
the censure of the peace of 1783, and the truce of 
1802.* 

* The peace of 1783 was the work of Lord Shelburne, who was a 
Whig, as was the younger Pitt, until 1792. 

The treaty of Amiens was concluded by Mr. Addington, but several 
of his colleagues were Whigs, and without the assistance of the Whig 
party, he could not have concluded the war. 



( 11 ) 

From the death of Pelham to the accession of the 
younger Pitt, frequent changes of administration oc- 
curred — many modifications. The Monarch was de- 
termined that the Ministry should not consist of Whigs, 
the people equally resolved not to be governed by 
Tories. Hence arose numerous mixed administrations, 
in which the two parties were nearly balanced ; in every 
ministry in which the elder Pitt was included, his prin- 
ciples were in the ascendant ; therefore George the 
Second, who feared but respected, and George the 
Third who abhorred him, were equally intent on his 
exclusion from power. 

With George the Third a new power commenced, 
that vulgarly called " backstair's influence." The 
first Coryphceus of this department was the notorious 
Lord Bute, the second the obscure Mr. Jenkinson. A 
mixed Cabinet existed in October 1760 — Lord Gran- 
ville, Lord Temple, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord 
Mansfield, Lord Bute, and William Pitt. The King 
was not inactive, nor Lord Bute indiscreet. In less 
than a year Pitt resigned ; Lord Temple was the only 
member of the Cabinet who followed him. The resig- 
nation of this great minister was caused by a refusal of 
the Cabinet to declare war against Spain ; in this the 
King adhered to the majority. In less than three 
months the prophecy of Pitt was fulfilled — we were at 
war with Spain. The King had, however, gained his re- 
signation ; dissentions prevailed in the Cabinet. Lord 
Bute opposed the subsidy to the King of Prussia ; he 
was intent on peace at all hazards, for what reasons, 
from what motives, it was at that time impossible to 
conjecture; the influence he exercised over the mind 
of the youthful monarch was equally sinister and extra- 
ordinary. The Duke of Newcastle could not endure 
an abject peace, he saw unless the King of Prussia was 
sustained we could not support the war. He loved 
office dearly, but he was an Englishman, and loved 
honour ; he resigned, and by that event obliterated the 



( 12 ) 

remembrance of all former follies, weaknesses, and in- 
consistencies. 

This singular man has been dealt with too harshly 
by posterity ; he had an inordinate love of place, and 
succeeded in filling the offices of Secretary of State, 
and First Lord of the Treasury, for more than forty 
years ; he of course must have served many, and of- 
fended more. Injuries are seldom forgiven, benefits 
never. 

The abuse, therefore, of the Duke of Newcastle 
proves nothing but the inherent baseness of mankind. 
In the pursuit of power he greatly impaired a princely 
fortune, and gained nothing but the Garter and ingra- 
titude. He refused a large pension on his retirement, 
for which he was much applauded, but not imitated. 
Whatever were his faults or his follies, he mainly con- 
tributed to the stability of the House of Brunswick, and 
therefore was flattered and betrayed by the worst of 
his dynasty. Lord Bute became Prime Minister. 

Few administrations have been shorter than Lord 
Bute's, not one more pregnant with disgrace ; he laid 
the foundation of that system of irresponsible authority 
which has well nigh destroyed our great commonwealth. 
A " backstairs influence," a secret Cabinet, controlled 
or betrayed the King's Ministers. While Lord Bute 
served under Pitt or the Duke of Newcastle, he was the 
head of a secret band, who instructed by him of what 
passed in the Cabinet, directed the home and foreign 
department. During the short period that he was Pre- 
mier there was no necessity for a secret Council. The 
new Minister commenced his reign by removing or 
disabling every man possessed of either virtue or in- 
dustry. Lord Barrington, a Tory, was removed from 
the Exchequer to the lucrative sinecure of Treasurer 
of the Navy : he was succeeded by Sir Francis Dash- 
wood, a man of ancient lineage, but great incapacity, 
(a description of person much prized by the Whigs and 
Tories of the present day.) 



( 13 ) 

The Duke of Devonshire, a Whig, was dismissed 
from his office of Lord Chamberlain, and his name 
erased by the King from the list of Privy Councillors. 
Upon what grounds this gross outrage was committed 
we at this period cannot even conjecture. The Duke, 
like all his ancestors and descendants, had exhibited a 
modest talent, an unobtrusive common sense, a mo- 
desty and a quiet firmness, not to be diverted from his 
purpose by a crafty sovereign or a repentant Jacobite. 
His virtue rendered him hateful, and he was cashiered. 
The Earl of Hardwicke shortly after retired from pub- 
lic life. The Duke of Newcastle again exhibited yearn- 
ings after office, but he would not consent to betray his 
country, and the negotiation failed ; soon after he 
formed an alliance with the Duke of Cumberland, who, 
disgusted by the dogged obstinacy of his nephew, and 
the revolting political profligacy of Bute, had become a 
decided Whig. The distinctions of Whig and Tory 
may be understood from the political movements at this 
period ; every Whig holding office either resigned in 
disgust, or was dismissed : the Tories, on the contrary, 
who opposed the favourite, were only transferred to 
less important but more lucrative offices, or were al- 
lowed to resign with distinction : the more eminent 
Tories approached the Whigs, but not one Whig fra- 
ternized with the Tories. The Tories were anxious to 
strengthen the Throne with the certainty of an ignoble 
peace (for every movement tended to this event :) the 
Whigs, on the other hand, preferred an expensive but 
glorious war, because it was waged against despots, 
and prevented a despotism at home. Had peace been 
preserved from 1763 to 1783 Ireland and Scotland 
would have been immolated to the demon of despotism; 
England and Wales must have soon followed liberty to 
the same grave. Premature crimes averted this deadly 
result, but at this period every thing appeared to favour 
the guilty but well digested plan. — The arms of Eng- 

2* 



( 14 ) 

land triumphed even with a Bute as premier. Por- 
tugal delivered from France and Spain, the French 
West India Islands captured, the Manilla Islands sub- 
dued, Cuba in our possession, all was unavailing : the 
peace of 1763 was concluded. It is unnecessary to 
dwell on the treaty, the most disgraceful since that of 
Utrecht. One article alone of this scandalous peace is 
worth recording. Cuba was surrendered. Cuba worth 
all our India islands collectively; Cuba, worth ten 
Gibraltars. Had we retained this island, North Ame- 
rica could never have been separated from England. 
It is now admitted that a majority of the House of 
Commons was bribed by money* to sanction the peace 
of 1763 ; this has been often denied, but it is now mat- 
ter of history. He who doubts the fact would believe 
in the innocence of Mary, Queen of Scots, or in the 
authenticity of the Popish plot. It is equally certain that 
Lord Bute received a large sum from the French court ; 
his grateful master, not to be outdone, conferred on him 
the Garter, and consigned him to opulence and infamy.f 
Personal corruption in a minister had hitherto been 
without a parallel in England, and has not served for a 
precedent. Pecuniary corruption in a majority of the 
Commons was also without a precedent, and never was 
followed in a British Parliament, but was acted on to a 
most appalling extent in the Irish Legislature in the 
year 1800. 

* The first writer that I am aware of who mentioned this disgraceful 
transaction, was Sir Nathaniel Wraxall, who, in the second volume of 
his Memoirs, gives the particulars. He was of course abused and con- 
tradicted by the Quarterly Review; but, in addition, we have the au- 
thority of Bishop Watson, who says, that he had the fact from the lips 
of Lord Shelburne. There cannot, therefore, be any doubt on the sub- 
ject. 

t The author was not aware of the extent of Lord Bute's guilt, un- 
til he had read the Memoirs of Wilberforce, who says, that Lord Cam- 
den told him that Lord Bute was bribed. No one had better opportu- 
nities of knowing this than Lord Camden. The Quarterly Review 
will find it difficult to stain his character. 



( 15 ) 

Here another characteristic of Toryism appears; a 
Tory, like Demosthenes, has no objection to be paid for 
doing his duty ; unfortunately he sometimes mistakes 
his duty, but never the pay day. The extensive bribery 
of 1763 and 1800 was the work of Tories: the receivers 
of the bribes in both cases were Tories. How does it 
happen that they should evince so strong a belief in the 
efficacy of money 1 It must arise from their attach- 
ment to prerogative which is always hateful, and never 
is availing unless maintained by force, which, in a 
country, is costly. How happens it that several Prero- 
gative and Tory Judges have been convicted of per- 
sonal corruption ? Lord Macclesfield, Jeflferies, and 
Scroggs are examples. No Whig magistrate of high 
rank has ever been convicted or even accused of this 
offence. How does it happen that all unprincipled 
demagogues and covetous democrats have hated the 
Whigs with greater virulence than the Tories 1 Wilkes, 
Home Tooke, and Cobbett, can answer, at present our 
business is with the first. 

The King found great difficulty in replacing Lord 
Bute ; he could find no man in the British dominions 
equally tractable, or he would have advanced him ; be- 
sides, at the time he was threatened with a visitation of 
that malady in which his existence closed many years 
after, we can thus account for his assent to a peace 
which was repugnant to the principles of his subsequent 
life — after much deliberation he selected Mr. George 
Grenville, the ill-omened father of an ill-omened family. 
The King could not foresee that this man would lose 
America, but he knew that he was servile and despotic. 
Wilkes, who had previously attacked Lord Bute, con- 
tinued to assail Grenville ; the profligate demagogue 
panted for a bribe, the quiescent minister languished for 
despotism. Between them they conferred a great bene- 
fit on their country. The celebrated number of the 
North Briton appeared : it was coarse, yet feeble, but it 



( 16 ) 

was true, — nothing so hateful as truth to a king or minis- 
ter. A general warrant was issued. Wilkes resisted : for- 
tunately for him there was a Whig Chief Justice of the 
Common Pleas* who released him from arrest, and con- 
demned the practice of general warrants; he subse- 
quently pronounced them illegal, which judgment was 
confirmed by his Tory rival, Lord Mansfield. Wilkes 
thus obtained a great triumph; his odious character 
was invested with dignity; his blasphemy and immo- 
rality became popular. One great result followed, — 
the constitution was vindicated, nay preserved, by the 
admirable magistrate who then presided in the Com- 
mon Pleas. The elder brotherf of the Minister was 
compelled to strike Wilkes's name from the Commission 
of the Peace, but having written a civil letter to him, 
was dismissed from his lieutenancy, and his name 
erased from the Privy Council. This exploit appears 
to have been a favourite amusement of George the 
Third.J 

Infamous and factious as was Wilkes, he was the 
first who caused the decision of a great constitutional 
principle, the illegality of general warrants. From the 
revolution to the present year, 1764, the uniform prac- 
tice had been to issue them on any emergency, which 
depended either on the will of a Secretary of State, or 
the discretion of a judge. 

Well and truly did Lord Camden say, " the discre- 
tion of a Judge is the law of tyrants." The Whigs on 
this occasion moved a declaration in the House of Com- 
mons against general warrants, — the Tories carried an 
adjournment by a majority of fourteen, but Lord Mans- 
field having decided in the King's Bench that general 

* Chief Justice Pratt, afterwards Lord Camden. 

+ Earl Temple, Lord Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire. 

t Many years later he erased the name of Charles Fox from the 
Privy Council, and dismissed the Duke of Norfolk from the Lieute- 
nancy of the West Riding of Yorkshire. 



( n ) 

warrants were illegal, the great constitutional principle 
was finally settled. The King and Mr. George Gren- 
ville could scarcely pretend that they were better law- 
yers than a Mansfield or a Camden. From that hour 
the " patriot King " attended closely to the appointment 
of judges, in England, Scotland, and Ireland, never, ex- 
cept under the pressure of strong coercion, permitting 
a Whig to ascend the Bench. 

To the bench of Bishops he also paid the closest, the 
most unremitting attention. The shepherd was worthy 
of his flock. 

FormosiCustos Pecoris, formosior ipse. 

The monarch required a consolation for his defeat. 
Liberty must be assailed somewhere ; and having failed 
in England, he turned his attention to North America. 
The minister attempted to introduce direct taxation ; he 
saw early he must fail, and wished to retreat The 
King urged him on, and told him, " he must persist or 
resign." He did persist. He thus prepared the way 
for the loss of America ; but in the following year his 
cabinet fell to pieces. 



( 18 ) 



CHAPTER II. 

1765. 

The King was afflicted by severe illness. On his re- 
covery, he suggested the appointment of a regency, to 
take effect on his demise. He required the insertion of 
his mother's name in the list of those from whom the re- 
gent should be selected. Mr. Grenville refused ; he fore- 
saw that if the King died, the regency of Lord Bute 
would commence. Lord Northington, however, sug- 
gested to an independent member of the House of Com- 
mons,* that it would be politic to insert the name of the 
Princess Dowager ; his friend accordingly, when the bill 
was in the Commons, moved that her name should be 
inserted ; the motion took the House by surprise. It 
passed unanimously; in consequence, the Minister was 
obliged to resign. Mr. Pitt and Lord Temple were ap- 
plied to by the Duke of Cumberland to form a ministry. 
They were intractable. Mr. Grenville resumed office, 
and effected a great good by dismissing some flagrant 
Tories, distinguished by a voracious appetite for the 
public money. The King, who loved the minister's 
vices, could not forgive his relapse into virtue; he dis- 
missed him a second time, and for ever. The Duke of 
Cumberland now applied to the Marquess of Rocking- 
ham, the head of the Whig party; he accepted office. 
Lord Northington retained the great seal. Every office 

* Mr. John Wharton, Member for Abingdon. 



( 19 ) 

was filled by a Liberal; thus was formed the first admi- 
nistration of the present reign, which was purely Whig. 

Chief Justice Pratt was raised to the peerage ; but 
Lord Temple and Pitt were not included in the new ad- 
ministration : thus, owing to the obstinacy and dissimu- 
lation of the King, the Whig party was divided, and the 
country placed in a most critical position. Every thing 
depended on one man, Pitt; no administration could last 
without him, and the monarch resolved that with him no 
administration should be long-lived. To complete the 
embarrassment of affairs, the Duke of Cumberland died 
suddenly, — a great public calamity. On a former oc- 
casion, he preserved the throne of Great Britain for his 
family ; had he lived he would have preserved America.; 
This man has been greatly underrated by posterity, and 
has not been properly appreciated or understood. 

The new Administration possessed honesty and talent, 
therefore it was short-lived. The insurgent party both 
in England and America, refused concessions from 
Whig Ministers, which they would have accepted from 
Tories. Lord Northington, a sturdy Whig, who had 
blown up the Grenville Ministry by a mine, destroyed 
the present by assault. He did not forget his ancient 
connexion with Pitt, and he was resolved to serve no 
other Premier. Pitt once more was minister ; but mad- 
dened by indignation at the conduct of the King, dis- 
gusted by the profligacy of the American and English 
" patriots," he conceived the hardy project of coercing 
both King and people, of terrifying the former into 
repentance, and goading the latter towards rational li- 
berty, but sincerity will always fail with a King or a 
rabble. 

During the political fever of this great man, he laid 
violent hands on his character ; he sunk into a peerage, 
and bade farewell to peace of mind for ever. He 
gained wealth, but lost reputation. It is not the object 
of this rapid sketch, to detail all the changes, the in- 
trigues, and domestic diplomacy of this period, an alte- 



( 20 ) 

ration in the cabinet marked every month. A deficient 
harvest raised great clamour against the minister. Ed- 
mund Burke, always fated to do mischief, marshalled 
the city against him, by the eloquence of two able pam- 
phlets. The Bourbons, whom he humiliated, were hos- 
tile. The Guelphs, whom he had saved, hated him. 
The honest member of that family was dead. To 
crown all, Charles Townshend expired. The Duke of 
Grafton became in reality, as well as nominally, Pre- 
mier ; thus betrayed by his colleagues, opposed by the 
majority of the Whig aristocracy, by the Tories, the 
Crown, the mercantile interest, the republic of letters, 
the democracy, and his own connexions, all the first- 
rate members, of the House of Commons, all the distin- 
guished Peers (except Lord Camden,) he at length re- 
tired from the political stage, and broke off all connexion 
with those who had so perseveringly betrayed him. 
Immediately new experiments were tried on the Con- 
stitution. Wilkes, who had been elected for Middlesex, 
was expelled. The Tories, always intent on arbitrary 
power, contended that expulsion was disqualification. 
In this they were supported by Johnson ; and, melan- 
choly to say, by Blackstone, who in the House of Com- 
mons contradicted his own Commentaries. The Whigs 
divided into sections, rallied together on this great con- 
stitutional question; and although deeply injured by 
Wilkes, who was the hero of the fight, they forgot all 
except the danger to liberty, and rescued the palladium 
of the Constitution from the flames. 

At the commencement of this year, 1769, the cele- 
brated Junius first appeared. No writer was at any 
period or in any country, more popular. At this day, 
seventy years since he first appeared, his fame is as en- 
during as ever. With a power of condensation une- 
qualled since Tacitus ; a stab in every sentence, a sting 
in every question, a darkness of colouring almost appal- 
ling, occasionally relieved by the scorching blaze of a 
vivid indignation, he sometimes plays with his victim, 



( 21 ) 

but only to tickle him to death ; he combines the spor- 
tive ferocity of a tiger with the noble daring of a lion. 
His letters exhibit brevity without obscurity,* strength 
without coarseness, elegance without feebleness, great 
depth with extreme clearness. Had this most able wri- 
ter attached himself to any honest party, or better still, 
had he renounced party altogether, no ministry could 
have withstood his assaults : but he not only was a de- 
cided partisan of the Grenville party, but he was almost 
always influenced by personal animosities or partialities. 
Hence his outrageous attacks on the Duke of Grafton 
and Home Tooke, his private correspondence with the 
infamous Wilkes. The Duke was bitterly assailed for 
some affairs of gallantry, while Wilkes, who wallowed 
in sensuality, who published indecent books, and wrote 
prurient letters to his own daughter, was applauded and 
encouraged. The Duke always had respect for reli- 
gion, and many years before his death proved the sin- 
cerity of his belief ;f Wilkes was a notorious infidel. It 
is curious enough that all the celebrated unbelievers 
whom Great Britain has produced were either Tories orj 
Radicals: Bolingbroke, Hume, Gibbon, Wilkes, Tom. 
Paine, attest the truth of this assertion. 

At the commencement of this year, 1770, Lord Chat- 
ham appeared in Parliament; he reviewed the state of 
Europe for the last seven years, censured the policy of 
the piebald ministry, and condemned the conduct of the 
House of Commons in reference to Wilkes. He was 
supported by Lord Camden, who still held the Great 
Seal, and animated by the reappearance of his ancient 
comrade, followed him to the breach, and fought bravely 
by his side; the result was his immediate dismissal, ■ 

* Brevis esse laboro 
Obscurus fio. — Horat. 

t The Duke of Grafton, several years before his death, became an 
Arian from conviction; he published, at his own expense, two editions 
of the New Testament, edited by the celebrated Griesbach. 
3 



( 22 ) 

which was followed by the resignations of the Solicitor- 
General,* and the Commander-in-Chief/)* There was 
great difficulty in finding a Chancellor ; all the eminent 
lawyers were Whigs, and as the paternal George was 
preparing for the American war, it was necessary that 
the " Keeper of the King's conscience" should be a de- 
cided Tory, and also an eminent lawyer ; such a man 
was not to be found ; it was therefore necessary to be- 
tray or seduce a Whig ; a renegade has always been 
acceptable to George the Third, and to the Tories edu- 
cated under his immediate inspection. Four Whig 
lawyers of first-rate eminence presented themselves to 
his view, Sir Fletcher Norton, Dunning, Charles Yorke, 
and Wedderburne ; of the first he was greatly afraid ; 
bold, eloquent, coarse, uncompromising, jocular, and 
humorous, he combined Whig principles with Republi- 
can manners ; such a man would not have suited the 
King in any respect. Besides, although he might have 
been unable to resist the Great Seal, yet like Lord Nor- 
thington (whom in many points he resembled,) he would 
in a short time have broken up the ministry, and sadly 
disturbed the decorum of the Bench of Bishops. 

Dunning had just resigned office ; Wedderburne had 
not the same political experience as the others, be- 
sides he was a Scotchman, and the great unpopularity 
of Lord Bute and Lord Mansfield was at this time 
highly injurious to every Soot, however eminent, how- 
ever honest. Charles YorkeJ was therefore the victim 
selected. He refused for several days : he had promised 
his elder brother that he would not yield ; but although 
he resisted the prayers, he yielded to the tears of the 
King. The serpent had folded him in its coils ; with 
averted face and trembling hand he accepted the Seals ; 
the King turned to one of his familiars and whispered 
I have done for him.§ The faltering Chancellor called 

* Mr. Dunning. t Marquess of Granby. 

t Second son of the celebrated Chancellor, Lord Hardwicke. 
§ The author had this anecdote from the late Henry Grattan, 



v^^B 



( 23 ) 



upon his brother,* and was refused admittance. The 
unhappy man went home, was seized with a fit, and in 
his delirium put an end to his existence. There is re- 
tribution hereafter. 



* The second Earl of Hardwicke. 



( 24 ) 



CHAPTER III. 



LORD CHATHAM LORD NORTH LORD THURLOW. 

The pious King, unable to sacrifice a second victim, 
placed the Great Seal in commission. Lord North be- 
came Premier ; the notorious Lord George Sackville 
became Secretary for War and Colonies: this man had 
been cashiered thirteen years previously, and was de- 
clared by sentence of a court-martial unfit to serve in 
any military capacity ; but he could not be deprived of 
his civil rights, and was accordingly allowed to or- 
ganize and direct the campaigns of the American war. 

George the Third had now for the first time an un- 
mixed Tory Cabinet, which lasted eleven years. Let 
us consider the conduct of the Whigs and Tories during 
this eventful period in reference to the principles of both 
parties. 

The Tories, according to their doctrines, were for 
taxation without representation, and without limit. The 
Whigs were for conciliation and moderate imposts. 
Had slight concessions been made at the commence- 
ment of 1770, the United States would still have be- 
longed to Great Britain : but the system so long acted 
upon in Ireland was to be adopted in America. The 
ministry, forgot that in Ireland there was a House of 
Commons, of which the vast majority sat for "pocket 
boroughs ;" in addition the entire aristocrary differed in 
religion and feeling from the great bulk of the people. 



( 25 ) 

The Whigs, however, in their zeal for economy and 
hatred of war, rendered it impossible for the Ministers 
to conduct hostilities with adequate vigour, and Ame- 
rica was lost for ever. 

One man alone did his duty : Lord Chatham. The 
Whigs, although professing sound principles, acted in- 
judiciously by cheering on the Americans. The war 
should never have commenced ; but having burst forth, 
should have been conducted with energy. On a motion 
made by the Duke of Richmond to terminate the war, 
Lord Chatham reappeared for the last time. He rose 
to protest against the dismemberment of the Monarchy, 
but his energy could not sustain his feeble frame; his 
last words were for his country ; his last thoughts to 
God : he left a world unworthy of hirri. 

Chatham belonged not to England, but to the world ; 
he was the friend to mankind, the enemy of despots. 
He loved liberty, not with that mercantile, exclusive 
love which modern political impostors profess, but 
with that ardent adoration which induces votaries to 
make proselytes. The modern patriot loves liberty be- 
cause it is British ; Chatham loved it the more that it 
was British, but panted to make it European, African, 
American. The former wishes it to be exclusive ; the 
latter willed it to be universal. Chatham was cast in 
the mould of antiquity, and more resembled the men of 
Plutarch than the feeble artists of modern times ; he 
was the type, the impersonation of Whiggism in its 
purest conceptions. If he raised the whirlwind, he 
could direct the storm ; at his bidding the light of liberty 
illumined Europe. The fierce democracy was wielded 
with the arm of Hercules, the Hydra of despotism 
strangled beneath his feet ; but, alas ! the shirt of Nessus 
prevailed; he succumbed beneath the robes of the Peer- 
age. 

In early life he had been in the army ; but while a 
subaltern was cashiered by the unscrupulous Walpole, 
for his votes in Parliament. His short military career 

3* 



( 26 ) 

was not without profit, during the seven years war he 
predicted the campaigns and organized victory. 

This great man had but one fault: he hated fools, 
and he displayed his hatred. Pure himself, he abhorred 
impurity in others. His only intolerance was that of 
vice, because he found no image of it in his own heart. 
Could he have adopted the wise simulation of Crom- 
well, or even the cool reserve of Washington, he would 
have been omnipotent. Of his eloquence we have no 
adequate memorials ; but judging from the effect pro- 
duced on his auditory, he must have surpassed every 
one who preceded him, and certainly left no equal. The 
younger Pitt and Charles Fox have generally been con- 
sidered the two greatest orators of the British Senate ; 
the merits of each exaggerated or depreciated accord- 
ing to the feelings of faction. 

It is now admitted by all impartial judges, that Fox 
was the greatest orator of the two, but it must be con- 
ceded that Chatham was greater even than him. If he 
wanted the humour, the sportive satire, the logic of Fox, 
he compensated by a torrent of classical invective, with- 
ering indignation, and awful rebuke, unequalled since 
Juvenal and Demosthenes, both of whom he resembled, 
— in a word, he was sublime, and realized the noble 
conception of Longinus. With physical requisites he 
was highly gifted ; a noble figure about middle size, an 
intelligent countenance, harmonious voice, graceful ges- 
ture and elocution. Had George the Third retained 
him as Minister, he would have held America, had his 
life been spared, the French Revolution would have 
been arrested. The deluge which overflowed Europe, 
receding within its natural banks, the ark of liberty 
would have floated safely on the waters, the dove sent 
forth, the olive branch must have returned. 

The war was protracted for nearly five years longer ; 
at length Lord North having been outnumbered, re- 
signed : thus ended the first Tory administration of 
George the Third. Lord George Sackville, who tried 



( 27 ) 

to lose the battle of Minden, and succeeded in losing 
America, was created a Viscount. The labourer is 
worthy of his hire ; he was therefore placed in the 
house of peers, an assembly which the pious king la- 
boured to render as amiable as himself, but did not 
succeed until he had infused the morality of the Irish 
Bishops. 

Nemo repente fuit turpissimus. 

Perhaps no other man but Lord North could have 
managed the House of Commons during the eleven 
years of his almost fatal ministry, assailed by the first 
talents in the country, sustained by nothing but medio- 
crity, he was himself alone, and fought bravely against 
Fox, Burke, Saville, Dunning, Barre, and latterly 
William Pitt. In the Lords he had only Mansfield and 
Thurlow to oppose to the great Chatham and Camden ; 
in Ireland he was opposed by Grattan and Flood. The 
Minister who stood against such an opposition was no 
common man. The great purity of his private cha- 
racter, his extreme personal popularity, and unwearied 
good humour, made him, as it were, the pet of the 
house of Commons. His eloquence was purely British, 
he had as great a command and mastery of the " unde- 
fined Saxon" as Pitt, and, in addition, greatly excelled 
in wit and humour. His irony, though pungent, never 
galled, it was playful and sportive, not malignant, nor 
even mischievous ; his satire was strictly Horatian ; the 
description given of Horace by a brother poet might 
apply to him. 

Omne vafer vitium ridenti FJaccus amico 

Tangil et admissus circum praecordia ludit. — Persius. 

He was as careless of money as the younger Pitt, 
but unlike him did not permit corruption in others. 
All the bribery was managed by the " backstair's in- 
fluence," which commenced in the present reign, and 



( 28 ) 

was carried on without his knowledge. Had he lived 
in times of peace, he would have been a great minister ; 
as it was, he undertook a disastrous war with great 
economy, and with scarcely any restrictions on liberty. 
He was retained in office five years at least beyond his 
wishes by the King, who had the power of cajoling 
every man he came in contact with. Lord North en- 
tered office a poor man ; he left it still poorer, but was 
fortunate in two respects. He lived long enough to 
redeem his character as a public man, and to witness 
how much more extravagant, how much more un- 
constitutional, was the younger William Pitt in his 
war. Let me, however, not anticipate. 

The second Rockingham Administration succeeded. 
The Cabinet consisted of eleven members. All (Lord 
Thurlow excepted) professed Whigs. Lord Rocking- 
ham, with four others, were in favour of recognising 
American independence ; the remaining six were against 
this measure. Thus the Premier was in a minority of 
his own Cabinet, and the artful Monarch, although 
obliged to surrender to the Whigs, made due arrange- 
ments to conduct the administration on Tory principles. 
In this he was assisted by the Chancellor, Thurlow, a 
very peculiar person, who, like Lord Mansfield, has not 
been justly or accurately appreciated. He had been 
raised to the office of Chancellor by lord North, after 
the retirement of Lord Apsley, because he had proved 
himself a most useful partisan, and no other lawyer of 
eminence was sufficiently arbitrary to suit the King. 
Thurlow was one proof among many, that a man may 
be a great lawyer and the reverse of a great statesman. 
His knowledge of law was neither accurate nor pro- 
found when he first became Chancellor ; but having 
great strength of mind, great common sense, and great 
quickness withal, he was enabled to grasp the main 
facts of every case, and with a vigorous step, and 
stately march, clearing away the rubbish, he built a 
solid, stately edifice of equitable jurisprudence, which, 






( 29 ) 



however altered or modified, will stand for many years, 
until a great Reformer, such as has not yet appeared 
in our times, shall reconstruct the entire fabrick. 

Sprung from the dregs of the people, he preserved to 
the last the brutal manners of the rabble, most of its 
vices, and all its coarseness. It is a curious fact, that 
a man who was addicted to fornication, wine, and 
blasphemy, should be the favoured Chancellor of George 
the Third, who was certainly a model of decorum. 
But the variety of Thurlow's propensities saved him 
from exposure and fatal excess. He had many " plea- 
sant vices;" he could not indulge in all, so he struck the 
average, and enjoyed each in turn. The strength of 
his constitution enabled him to bear a great deal, and 
the labours of his profession diminished the time he 
could devote to his orgies — coarse, yet strong, violent, 
impracticable ; fluent, not eloquent, he never persuaded, 
but scared his opponents ; he seldom proved that he 
himself was right, but often showed that his adversa- 
ries were wrong. Unfettered by the decorum of the 
Peers, unrestrained by any respect for learning or ta- 
lents, he bore down opposition by sheer ruffianism ; 
secure, as he was, of holding office so long as he ad- 
vanced the King's object ; protected by his station from 
the just vengeance he so often provoked, he enabled 
the monarch to carry his measures. A great object 
was attained by the division of the Whigs. Lord 
Rockingham's death hurried on the crisis. Lord Shel- 
burne was created Premier. Fox and his adherents 
resigned. 

This year, 1782, was marked by two striking events 
— a successful revolution in Ireland, and Rodney's vic- 
tory. 

William Pitt became Chancellor of the Exchequer 
and ministerial leader of the House : he was now 
brought into direct rivalry, for the first time, with 
Charles James Fox — a rivalry which lasted to the close 
of their lives, brought the commonwealth to the verge 



( 30 ) 

of ruin, and immolated both. Had these two men 
united cordially (and their principles were the same), Eu- 
rope would have been spared the innumerable calamities 
it has suffered ; the revolutions which took place and 
are in progress would have been averted, but 

" Diis aliter visum est." 

The state of parties presented a curious aspect; the 
Ministry was Whig, but it had to face two oppositions, 
one Whig the other Tory. Sir Robert Walpole, had 
been in the same position many years, and was van- 
quished at last ; but his defeat was frustrated for years 
by a system of corruption which at this period would 
not have been endured. Mr. Canning, many years later 
was in a similar predicament, and had his life been 
spared must have surrendered. No ministry can with- 
stand two oppositions. The greater the difference be- 
tween them, the greater the danger to the government. 
This may sound like a paradox, but viewed closely will 
appear natural enough. Take the case of Lord Shel- 
burne had he yielded to Fox, he then had the entire Tory 
party to encounter, reinforced by the pioneers and sut- 
tlers of Downing-street, whom he and Fox could not 
have provided for. Had he joined Lord North (which 
the King wished) he then had the whole Whig force to 
face, backed by the great body of the people and the 
aristocracy. He must then, with his immediate friends, 
have merged in the Tories, and on the death of Lord 
Guilford (now very old,) would have been without a 
leader in the Commons, as Pitt refused to serve with Lord 
North. It is not my object to detail personal animosities ; 
I therefore pass over the distaste of Fox for Shelburne, of 
Pitt for North, which in a very few weeks produced the 
celebrated coalition. Why Fox and Pitt did not join \ 
has never yet been satisfactorily ascertained. It is true j 
their fathers were personal and political enemies, but 
they both reposed in their graves, and the political prin- 



( 31 ) 

ciples of the sons being the same, nay, their tastes, pur- 
suits, and habits being in most respects alike, it is re- 
markable that they did not form a coalition. Of their 
characters, eloquence, and attainments, I shall attempt 
a sketch when I shall have occasion to treat of the 
events of 1806, which year consigned them both to im- 
mortality in Westminster Abbey. 




( 32 ) 



CHAPTER IV. 



LORD SHELBURNE LORD MANSFIELD. 



Lord Shelburne whose personal character had so 
much influence on parties, was a singular mixture of 
great and mean qualities. He was a follower and ad- 
mirer of Lord Chatham, and it should appear that, 
warned by the result of the faults of that great man, he 
fell into opposite extremes, and resolved not to suffer by 
enthusiasm ; he fell into the error of superfluous craft. 
Aware of the character of the Sovereign, he was re- 
solved to fight him with his own weapons, and therefore 
acted towards him with deep but necessary dissimu- 
lation. 

To acquire a proficiency in dissembling, he constantly 
practised guile, and desired not only to be a very cun- 
ning man, but to be thought one. 

The result was, that although formed to be loved and 
admired, every one suspected, and no one esteemed him. 
Such was his character, that he was generally known 
by the name of Malagrida, (a celebrated Jesuit.)* 

With such a man, Fox could have no community of 
feeling ; he was simplicity itself, and carried candour 
to excess. The other dissembled even when unneces- 
sary, consequently he was always suspected, yet the 
public was wrong in its estimate of his character. 

* Oliver Goldsmith one day addressed Lord Shelburne with the fol- 
lowing innocent question, "My Lord, why are you called Malagrida? 
Malagrida was a very honest man." 



( 33 ) 

Shelburne not only deceived all England, but himself; 
and having left office with a very dubious reputation, 
he proved many years afterwards that he had been an 
honest man. 

The celebrated coalition of Fox and North was caused 
by the Shelburne Ministry. Few political events have 
produced so great a sensation; at this hour the subject 
is adverted to for factious purposes ; nay, both North and 
Fox are misrepresented by Tories and Whigs indiscri- 
minately. Few political men survive who shared in the 
struggle of that eventful period ; perhaps not one who 
can calmly look back and pronounce an unbiassed judg- 
ment. The truth is, that coalitions, however they may 
succeed in France, have seldom answered their aim in 
Great Britain. Men cannot understand how combatants 
in the same field, having wounded and galled each other, 
should join forces and attack a third party. A sacrifice 
of principle must, it is thought, take place, and the man 
who yields principle is lost, while he holds to his own is 
disgraced by the junction of the yielding party. It is 
forgotten that honourable men may merge their dissen- 
sions in a feeling of common danger. In the present 
case Fox yielding nothing, Lord North but little. 
Parliamentary reform was left an open question, on 
which subject Lord Shelburne and Pitt were divided. 
The American war had virtually closed, in which Lord 
Shelburne exhibited great inconsistency ; he had fol- 
lowed Lord Chatham in clinging to British supremacy, 
yet was on the eve of acknowledging American inde- 
pendence. What Pitt's real sincere opinion on this sub- 
ject was, is to this hour unknown. His cautious pru- 
dence (miraculous for his years,) veiled his thoughts in 
obscurity. Lord North was indignant that a disadvan- 
tageous peace should be made ; Fox was reluctant that 
Rodney's victory (gained during his direction of foreign 
affairs,) should have gathered fruitless laurels ; on this 
ground the coalition was cemented. Let us consider 
4 



( 34 ) 

the consequences with calmness ; let us examine the de- 
velopment of Whig and Tory principles. 

Not only the opposition, but the Ministry consisted of 
a fusion of Whigs and Tories. If Fox and Lord North 
had coalesced, on the other side were Lord Shelburne 
and Pitt yoked with Lord Thurlow and Dundas; if 
Lord Camden the great Whig magistrate, was in the 
Cabinet, yet Lord Mansfield (reputed for many years 
the great bulwark of Toryism) sided with the coalition; 
those two eminent men have not been overrated, nor 
have they been treated with justice ; if Mansfield was 
not so arbitrary as has been imagined, yet Lord Cam- 
den was not so liberal as his admirers assert.* 

William Murray was the younger son of Lord Stor- 
mont, a Scotch peer of high Tory principles, and who 
was said to have been secretary to the Pretender. At 
a very early age, young Murray left Scotland never to 
return. He was called to the bar and remained a few 
years unnoticed, until some lucky accident havingbrought 
forth his talents, he at once rose to eminence and wealth. 
He obtained a seat in the House of Commons, and in a 
short time was second to Pitt. We have no accurate 
reports of the speeches of that period : we can only know 
by tradition what effect he produced, but he must have 
been an orator of no mean pretensions when the Duke 
of Newcastle was anxious that he should undertake the 
management of the House of Commons against Pitt. 
In 1756 he was created a Peer, and raised to the King's 
Bench as Chief Justice. As a Judge he was eminently 

* The names of both have been used for factious purposes, the first 
promoter of which was Junius. The great object of Janius's hatred 
was Lord Mansfield, after him the Duke of Grafton; the Gods of his 
idolatry Lord Chatham and Lord Camden. It must be admitted, how- 
ever, that Lord Camden did not evince any Tory propensities until 
the year after Junius ceased to write. It is singular enough that all 
the individuals whom Junius violently attacked (except George the 
Third) closed their career as Whigs, — the Duke of Grafton, the Duke 
of Bedford, Lord North, Lord Mansfield, Sir Fletcher Norton, Home 
Tooke, Sir William Draper. 



( 35 ) 

great. His judgments were admirable, but too highly- 
polished for the vulgar, too classical for country gentle- 
men, too refined for the bar. He has been accused of 
introducing equity into a common law court, that is, of 
attending more to the justice and common sense of the 
case before him, than to the decisions of his predeces- 
sors. The truth is, this great man did not hold trial by 
jury in much veneration; and was always anxious that 
as little as possible should be entrusted to juries, and 
that Judges should decide on the facts as well as the 
law. He wished to introduce Civil Law, both in theory 
and practice, into the Court of King's Bench. He appears, 
when contrasted with his predecessors and successors, to 
have been a most liberal judge except as to the law of libel ; 
he was willing to tolerate any liberty except that of the 
press, but even on this subject he was indulgent, if not 
tolerant. He was perhaps too anxious to convict, but 
he was reluctant to punish ; a judgment of his court 
never shortened the life of a printer, or ruined his fami- 
ly ; he never could induce himself to condemn an author 
or publisher to " two years imprisonment and a fine of 
a thousand pounds," which was the sentence almost 
uniformly pronounced by Lord Kenyon, an example 
followed by Lord Ellenborough and the Irish Judges. 
His judicial eloquence was of the highest order, but too 
much tainted by metaphysical disquisition, the defect of 
every eminent Scotch orator. His perception of subtle 
niceties which escaped others induced him to refine and 
theorize. His own definition of special pleading, " ex- 
quisite logic," was the exact characteristic of his own 
judgments. He was repeatedly offered the Great Seal, 
but not choosing to run the risk of dismissal he always 
declined it. Accordingly, to the great misfortune of the 
country he remained in the King's Bench, where he was 
misplaced, and declined Chancery, where he might have 
shone as the greatest civil magistrate that England had 
ever beheld. The contrast between him and Thurlow 
was striking : it was the difference between an Athenian 



( 36 ) 

and a Spartan ; a mild philosopher, and an enfranchised 
helot; the patrician Sylla, the plebian Marius. In reli- 
gion he was most liberal and enlightened, as almost 
every Scothman of eminence has been ; he was among 
the earliest advocates for concessions to the Catholics, 
and was anxious for the repeal of the Test and Cor- 
poration Acts. He was one of the many instances we 
find of a man possessing great moral, great personal, but 
no political courage. When a brutal Protestant mob 
burnt his house and library, no complaint escaped him ; 
the only remark he made was a short time after, when, 
addressing the House of Lords on a legal question, he 
said pathetically, " My Lords, I do not quote this doc- 
trine from books, for I have no books." On another oc- 
casion, when it was apprehended that the mob would 
enter Westminster Hall and break into his court, he re- 
fused to leave it, he said, with serene dignity, " If I am 
to perish, let me fall while in the discharge of my duty 
in the temple of justice." 

As a classical scholar he was eminent; as a poet he 
would have attained fame, had he made poetry his ob- 
ject. 

" How sweet an Ovid was in Murray lost." 

His private character was exemplary; and if he was a 
Tory, let those who call themselves Whigs commit as 
small a number of Tory offences. 

The father of Charles Pratt was Chief Justice of the 
Court of King's Bench. He was not eminent but as a 
lawyer. Of the son's career at the bar we have no 
very authentic accounts; it is as a judge and a states- 
man we have to review his character. He was but a 
few years Chief Justice of the Common Pleas, and was 
Chancellor for little more than three years. In the for- 
mer office, he laid the foundation of his reputation. We 
have seen that he was the great support of the press 
against Lord Mansfield, and that he tore up by the roots 



( 37 ) 

the doctrine of general warrants. Hence his great, his 
lasting fame. 

He was, while a Judge, the guardian of the constitu- 
tion ; the liberty of the press, and the freedom of the 
subject were secure during his career; his law of libel 
was the legacy he bequeathed to his country. It is sin- 
gular that on religious liberty he was unenlightened. 
The subject on which Mansfield was liberal, he was in- 
tolerant. Catholic emancipation he did not desire. 
Nay, the repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts found 
no favour in his eyes. With great candour, he con- 
fessed to Bishop Watson, " that the first time the repeal 
of the test acts was introduced, it ought to have been 
carried. But on the second attempt, he should resist it, 
as Pitt must be supported." The eloquence of Camden 
was of a robust, manly character, eminently British, more 
judicial than forensic, not so classical as Mansfield, not 
so pointed as Dunning, but pure, copious, and nervous. 
He seldom spoke that he did not utter some maxim 
worthy of being stereotyped. How many men are there 
now alive of whom this could be said with truth? 



4* 



( 38 ) 



CHAPTER V. 



COALITION MINISTRY. 

The Shelburne ministry was left in a minority ; it 
struggled, and was again defeated. The King who 
made every effort to exclude Fox, at length capitu- 
lated. The coalition triumphed.* Never was minis- 
try more reviled, yet it was the ablest Great Britain had 
ever seen; had it endured, we should have had no debt 
of eight hundred millions, no protracted revolution in 
France, no constructive treason law, no Irish rebellions 
(of which there were three,j-) and no convulsions of the 
funds. There was but one " open question " — that of 
parliamentary reform, and this is the first instance, (if I 

* The Cabinet consisted of only seven members ; — 

Frst Lord of the Treasury — Duke of Portland. 

Secretary, Home Department — Lord North. 

Foreign Affairs — C. J. Fox. 

Chancellor of Exchequer — Lord John Cavendish. 

First Lord of the Admiralty — Lord Keppel. 

President of the Council — Lord Stormont. 

Privy Seal — Earl of Carlisle. 
The great seal was put into commission ; Lord Loughborough Chief 
Commissioner ; the Earl of Mansfield was speaker of the House of 
Lords. 

t In 1794, 1798, 1803. The first is very little understood at this 
day, and there is not much accurate knowledge on the subject. The 
less that is said or written on these Irish Rebellions the better. Equal 
infamy attaches to the rebels and the government of the day. The in- 
vention of steam-vessels, however, has settled the question of Irish 
insurrection for ever. 



( 39 ) 

do not greatly mistake) of an open question being ad- 
mitted by a Cabinet. 

The King consoled himself by thwarting his minis- 
ters in every department. He refused to create any new 
peers. The Archbishopric of Canterbury being vacant, 
he filled the office without consulting his Ministers. So 
far did he carry his resentment, that he declined con- 
ferring the order of the Bath, although the herald's officers 
were at the door of the royal closet, by his own appoint- 
ment: yet this man has been represented as the slave 
of the coalition. The ministry did not retain office 
many months, yet it possessed an overwhelming majority 
in the Commons, and apparently a majority in the 
Lords. 

The celebrated India bill, as introduced by Mr. Fox, 
serves to demonstrate, in a clear manner, one of the 
characteristics of the Whigs — a disposition to control 
the Crown by means of the House of Commons. It also 
displayed the prominent feature of Toryism — a desire 
to exalt the royal prerogative to the detriment of the 
other branches of the constitution. Both parties behaved 
with perfect consistency on this bill, which was a mea- 
sure essentially Whiggish. Both parties exhibited their 
peculiar vices, which they have carefully embalmed 
to the present hour. The Whigs were trying to make 
the cabinet a family party; the Tories laboured to ex- 
alt the Crown and gorge themselves with wealth ; at the 
same time, they hallooed the mercantile class against 
the aristocracy, and succeeded in persuading the peo- 
ple that both commonalty and King were coerced. The 
yeomanry were told that the prerogative of the Crown 
was transferred to Mr. Fox. On what grounds was 
this base assertion made? In the India bill there were 
seven commissioners named, and a subordinate board 
of nine, subject to the approbation of East India propri- 
etors; but in Mr. Pitt's bill the same thing was done in 
another way. The commissioners were indeed named 
by the Crown, but at the dictation of the Minister. The 



i 



( 40 ) 

East India Company elected the Governor-General, but 
could the directors oppose the existing government? 
This celebrated bill, it is now generally believed, was 
prepared by Edmund Burke, the illustrious villifier of 
the French Revolution. But if the bill was not his natu- 
ral offspring it was the child of his adoption. His mas- 
terly oration on ihe second reading of the bill contains 
every argument that wisdom, learning, or genius could 
suggest. It demolished, by anticipation, every argu- 
ment, every theory, every point, that was urged in the 
House of Lords. In the Commons he annihilated the 
opponents of the bill. The result was, it was carried 
by a majority of 114. Ten years later Burke was the 
great bulwark of the Tories, the prominent champion of 
monarchy, the terror of " anarchists." It is humbly 
suggested that if the Burke of 1793 was "inspired," it 
is not likelv that the Burke of 1783 was insane. 

The ministry had obtained the approbation of the 
monarch previous to the introduction of the bill in the 
Lords, it was read a first and a second time without a 
division, on which latter occasion counsel were heard 
against the bill, it was vehemently opposed by Lord 
Thurlow, and Lord Camden,* the savage ravings, and 
unscrupulous assertions of the former, were valued at 
what they were worth: but the latter had an unblem- 
ished character ; under some strange hallucination, he 
declared " that the King of Great Britain, and the King 
of Bengal would contend for superiority in a British 
House of Parliament, were this bill to pass into a law," 
notwithstanding all the efforts of the opposition, Minis- 
ters must have triumphed, had they open hostility alone 
to encounter: but the " back-stair's influence," which 
had worked so fearfully at the commencement of 
the reign, was now brought to bear against them. 

* It is curious enough that the three great tellerships of the Exche- 
quer were conferred on Earl Temple, Lord Thurlow, and the son of 
Lord Camden, the first worth £30,000 a year, the two others, £20,000 
a year each. 



( 41 ) 

The ill-omened family of the Grenville, supplied the 
instrument by which mischief was to be effected. Earl 
Temple* canvassed the peers, and exhibited a card an- 
nouncing, " that His Majesty not only should cease to 
consider any peer voting for the bill as his friend, but 
should regard him as an enemy :" and if this language 
was not strong enough, Earl Temple had permission to 
use " whatever words were more to the purpose." Du- 
ring the dynasty of the Stuarts, nothing more outrageous 
against the constitution was attempted. We hear of the 
committal of seven bishops to the Tower; here was a 
threat held out to twenty-six prelates. The head of whom 
was recently elevated to Canterbury by means of a ma- 
noeuvre.! 

In addition to Earl Temple's canvass, desertion was 
encouraged ; the Prince of Wales, who had voted for the 
first reading, absented himself on this occasion. This 
well-timed treachery and carefully studied baseness af- 
forded a happy specimen of that political morality which 
marked the whole of his career. Fox fell before, this 
combination ; George, Prince of Wales, the Bench of 
Bishops, and the King. The result was, that the bill 
was rejected by a majority of nineteen. It is right to 
add that Mr. Pitt appears to have had no share in these 
transactions, if he had, it must have been subsequently 
discovered when the Grenville family became his oppo- 
nents. He was not even accused of any share in the 
intrigue ; Lord Shelburne was, but he was equally inno- 

* Earl Temple, afterwards Marquess of Buckingham, son of George 
Grenville. 

t As soon as Dr. Cornwallis died, the King privately sent for Dr. 
Lowth, Bishop of London, and offered him the Arehbishoprick, he re- 
fused as being too old. He then sent for Dr. Hurd, Bishop of Worces- 
ter, who declined for the same reason. He desired them to recommend 
a proper person, they proposed Dr. Moore, Bishop of Bangor, and the 
King immediately issued the conge delire. It is curious enough that 
twenty-two years later, he played the same trick on Pitt when Dr. 
Moore died. Dr. Tomline was named for the situation, but the King 
appointed Dr. Manners Sutton the instant he heard of the vacancy. 



( 42 ) 

cent. Pitt was very young, and had not attained that 
maturity of baseness in which the Prince of Wales was 
already an adept, and which he afterwards brought to 
the most elaborate perfection. 

The division took place on the 17th December ; on the 
18th, a strong resolution passed on the motion of Mr. 
Baker, in the Commons, impugning Lord Temple's con- 
duct ; at midnight a King's messenger delivered the ro- 
yal commands to Lord North and Fox to deliver up the 
seals of office, and a desire was expressed, " that the 
under secretaries should hand them over to the King, 
as a personal interview would be disagreeable." This 
insult was doubtless intended by the paternal Monarch 
as a recompense for the lenity with which he had been 
treated. 

The next day the seals were given to Lord Temple, 
and the remaining members of the Cabinet were dis- 
missed. Lord Shelburne declined his former office ; 
Lord Temple refused to hold the seals of Secretary of 
State, afraid of an impeachment; amidst these unusual 
difficulties, William Pitt, in the twenty-fifth year of his 
age, was created Prime Minister. 



( 43 ) 



CHAPTER VI. 



MINISTRY OF PITT. 



The youthful Premier was resolved to prove that 
safety may be found without a multitude of counsellors. 
The new Cabinet consisted of eight.* He himself 
was the only commoner of the number; and all the 
Peers (the Duke of Richmond, Earl Howe, and Lord 
Thurlow excepted,) were beneath contempt. The 
Duke and the Chancellor differed upon every question, 
foreign and domestic. The Duke, who was a decided 
liberal, always advocated Parliamentary Reform, which 
Thurlow viewed with great disapprobation. The Duke 
was the constant opponent of the American war, and 
in a great measure was instrumental in bringing it to 
a close. Thurlow was Chancellor during the greater 
part of the war, and always supported it on principle. 
On these important questions Pitt uniformly professed 

* The Cabinet was as follows : — 

Lord Chancellor — Lord Thurlow. 

First Lord of the Treasury and Chancellor of the Exchequer — Mr. 
Pitt. 

President of Council — Earl Gower. 

Privy Seal — Duke of Rutland. 

Secretary of Foreign Affairs — Marquis of Carmarthen. 

Secretary, Home — Lord Sydney. 

First Lord of the Admiralty — Earl Howe. 

Master-General of the Ordnance — Duke of Richmond. 

Very shortly after the Duke of Rutland went to Ireland as Lord 
Lieutenant, when Earl Gower accepted the Privy Seal, and Lord Cam- 
den became President of the Council. 



( 44 ) 

the same opinions as the Duke. How then could Pitt 
and Thurlow sit in the same Cabinet 1 The American 
question was at rest for ever ; but Parliamentary Re- 
form remained.* 

The struggle between Fox and Pitt continued for 
nearly three months. The Minister was uniformly in 
a minority. The aristocracy was against him, the 
landed interest was hostile, so was the Heir Apparent. 
Upon whom could he rely? On the Clergy, the East 
India Company, and the Corporations. The Bishops 
saw clearly that they might gain by supporting Pitt, 
but could not lose by opposing Fox. The conduct of 
the King as to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury con- 
firmed waverers, and enlisted converts. The unprin- 
cipled Wilkes, who had been elected to the lucrative 
office of Chamberlain of the City of London, took the 
lead in addressing Pitt. His influence in the City was 
very great; he swayed the Corporation, and the other 
Corporations throughout the country followed the ex- 
ample set by London. Cobbett in his strong, homely 
way, often said, " People are very apt to be led away 
by names." Seldom has a juster observation been 
made. Apply it to the crisis of 1784. The Corpora- 
tors, unable to perceive that it did not follow, because 
Wilkes, nearly twenty years before, had been the in- 
trepid foeman to general warrants; that he should, 
therefore, in his old age, be a fit arbitrator between 
Pitt and Fox : nor did the sober citizens reflect, that a 
man of most infamous private character, was not the 

* Whatever may be thought as to Pitt's sincerity on the Catholic 
question and the Slave Trade, there cannot now be a doubt that on 
Parliamentary Reform he was thoroughly insincere. During the short 
time the Duke of Rutland (who was a great borough monger) sat in 
the Cabinet with him, he might have felt some difficulty; but when 
the Duke was replaced by Lord Camden, the measure could have been 
carried with the greatest ease. From 1784 until 1792 there was no 
obstacle in his way. He ought to have known that the French Revo- 
lution in 1789 must have produced a reform in England, unless he 
went to war. It is now admitted on all sides, that the French Revo- 
lution of 1830 produced our Reform of 1832. 



( 45 ) 

appropriate supporter of a " most religious monarch ;** 
but Camden was in the Cabinet. Mansfield supported 
the coalition. Names went for every thing, principle 
for nothing ; and even at the present day sucking Tory 
Statesmen lisp out " unprincipled coalition." The po- 
sition of Pitt was certainly a proud one. He appeared 
to gain strength from defeat, and vigour from the 
weakness of his cause. His sole lieutenant was Dun- 
das, who, although a man of great ability, and muscu- 
lar strength of mind, was far from being eloquent. 
His Scotch cunning, joined with more than Irish ef- 
frontery, embellished by a most offensive accent, and 
barbarous pronunciation, was not calculated for the 
House of Commons of 1784. He was too early for 
that assembly by fifty years. Fox, on the other hand, 
was sustained by Lord North, Burke, Sheridan, Ers- 
kine, and Marshal Conway, with a vast majority of 
the county members ; among them Byng the Member 
for Middlesex, and Coke of Norfolk; but the back- 
stair's influence had effect. Mr. Jenkinson, although 
he supplied no eloquence, laboured in his own depart- 
ment, and the opposition majority fell from fifty to one. 
The Parliament was then dissolved. Pitt gained a 
majority of nearly one hundred ; Wilkes was returned 
for Middlesex, defeating Byng ; and Coke was rejected 
in Norfolk. 

The commencement of the new Parliament was 
marked by an attempt to destroy the freedom of elec- 
tion. The high bailiff of Westminster, although he de* 
clared a majority for Fox above Sir Cecil Wray, yet 
went into a scrutiny which he admitted might last two 
years. The Tory party has never viewed with a fa- 
vourable eye the freedom of election ; and has always 
sustained the returning officer against the electors* 
whenever a dispute arose* On this subject, the party 
has been most consistent, not only resisting every ap* 
proach to parliamentary reform, but guarding with the 
most zealous care, all the blemishes, all the defects, nay, 
5 



( 46 ) 

the very deformities, of the ancient system. The com 
sequence was, that the debates on the Westminster 
scrutiny lasted for the remainder of the session, and 
only closed the following year, when the Minister was 
left in a minority. Immediately after, he introduced 
a bill for parliamentary reform, which was strongly 
supported by Fox, but defeated by a majority of seventy- 
four. It is worthy of observation, that Pitt should have 
never succeeded in carrying the three great liberal 
measures on which his reputation and honour were 
staked, Parliamentary Reform, Abolition of Slave 
Trade, Emancipation of the Catholics. It is now mat- 
ter of history that the King was decidedly opposed to 
the last of these measures, and it has been asserted 
that he was extremely hostile to parliamentary reform ; 
certain it is, that Pitt never again brought forward a 
measure of that nature. The most important measure 
introduced by ministers for many years, was a bill for 
regulating commercial intercourse between England 
and Ireland. Resolutions passed the Irish legislature, 
commonly called the " Irish Propositions." When in- 
troduced in the British House of Commons, they were 
strongly opposed, and also in the Lords; having been 
embodied in a bill, they finally passed the English legis- 
lature ; but when returned to the Irish House of Com- 
mons, the opposition was so strong, not only in the 
House but throughout Ireland, that Mr. Orde (the Sec- 
retary for Ireland,) withdrew the bill for ever. It was 
the rejection of this favourite measure that first suggested 
the idea of a legislative union to Mr* Pitt. It was evi- 
dent to every discerning person, that a legislative union* 
or a parliamentary reform, was indispensable : had the 
English House of Commons really represented the peo- 
ple, it might have laughed to scorn the Irish House, a 
vast majority of which was returned by three Peers.* 
Had the Irish House been reformed, the example would 

. * Marquess of Waterford, Marquess of Ely, Earl of Shannon. 



( 47 ) 

have been followed in England. Accordingly, Mr. 
Flood, with admirable sagacity, introduced in the Irish 
House of Commons, a bill of parliamentary reform, 
which was of course rejected.* It may be necessary 
here to make a few observations on the Irish Proposi- 
tions. 

Pitt seems to have attempted, on this occasion, to en- 
force the doctrines of free trade, which were first deve- 
loped by Adam Smith ; but although he evidently under- 
stood and admired the system of Smith, yet his whole 
political life and that of his wretched imitators, were in 
direct opposition to the views and principles of the great 
economist. The Irish Propositions, although based on 
the principles of free trade, yet contained so many ex- 
ceptions to the general rules, that they were both insult- 
ing and oppressive. Had the Minister at once abolished 
all duties on Irish goods imported into England, and 
insisted on the abolition of duties on English goods im- 
ported into Ireland, he would have effected a great 
benefit to the commercial world ; but instead of repeal- 
ing duties, he reduced them, and continued the system 
of bounties and drawbacks, which had the effect of 
alarming the English merchants, and irritating the gen- 
try and merchants of Ireland to such an extent, that the 
country was brought to the verge of a rebellion. 

The Irish dreaded the loss of their trade by the dis- 
continuance of the "protecting duties," as they were 
absurdly called. The English feared the importation 
of linen, butter, corn, malt liquor, and spirits from Ire- 
land, which they justly thought could be produced at a 
much less cost in that country than in England, in con- 
sequence of low taxation and a fertile soil. They wisely 
conjectured, too, that the woollen trade would again re- 

* The Irish House of Commons consisted of three hundred mem. 
bers; sixty -four returned by counties, two by the University, the re- 
mainder by cities, towns, and villages. Except Dublin and Cork, they 
were all pocket boroughs, or nearly so ; for instance, Belfast, the third 
city in Ireland, had a constituency of fifteen. 



( 48 ) 

vive, which in the reign of William III. threatened to 
eclipse that of England. Ireland was also prohibited 
from trading directly with the East Indies. It is im- 
possible to consider this latter proviso in any other light 
than a payment to the East India Company for the ser* 
vices rendered to Pitt during the coalition ministry. 
The proposition was injurious alike to. the Irish and 
English merchants; to the former as excluding them 
from a lucrative trade ; to the latter, as preventing them 
from extending their connexions with Ireland. Had the 
trade been free between Ireland and India, Liverpool 
would then have been the commercial capital of Ireland* 
which she will yet become probably in five years. 



( 49 ) 



CHAPTER VII. 



RICHARD BRTNSLEY SHERIDAN* 



The Premier, if not the ablest financier, was at least 
the most skilful craftsman in Europe; his celebrated 
scheme of a sinking fund was at this period introduced. 

This appalling fraud imposed on the world for more 
than forty years; it was never sufficiently developed 
until Lord Grenville published a tract, in which, with 
great ability, he demonstrates the inutility and mischief 
of the sinking fund : and with equal candour admits that 
all the Ministers (himself included) were mistaken and 
deceived.* 

Lord Thurlow appears to have been the only man in 
England who accurately examined, and duly weighed 
the bearings of this measure, but he restrained his feel- 
ings and concealed his opinion (at least from the public) 
for many years. The only real use of the sinking fund 

* Lord Grenville published, some years since, " Considerations on 
Finance. Part the First." The Second Part was never published. 
The pamphlet was a most able and useful one; it exposed, in the clear- 
est manner, the inefficiency of the sinking fund, and Mr. Pitt's system 
of loans and funding; but the most valuable part of the treatise is the 
definition of the national debt — " An annuity reclaimable at the plea- 
sure of the borrower, but not at the will of the lender." Reams of non- 
sense and of falsehood have been written on the national debt. A fund- 
holder always asserts that he has a mortgage on all the land of Great 
Britain and Ireland. This is a delusion : the debt has no one feature 
of a mortgage. It cannot be foreclosed ; it cannot be called in at the 
will of the lender on notice. 

5* 



\ 



( 50 ) 

was to enable the Minister to borrow any sum he 
pleased without alarming the public ; and it is now wor- 
thy of consideration, if the object was not attained at 
too high a price — at too great a risk. It is to be borne 
in mind, that in 1797 the Bank stopped payment; in 
1817, Ireland became bankrupt; and in 1825, we were 
within forty-eight hours of barter. Admirable results 
of the financial system of Pitt ! 

In this year, 1786, the trial of Warren Hastings com- 
menced, which must reflect lasting disgrace on the Bri- 
tish Legislature : it lasted nearly seven years. If Hast- 
ings were innocent, what are we to think of the wisdom 
of our ancestors? What, above all, of the administra- 
tion of Justice ? How rrpny men could have sustained 
the enormous expense, or borne up against the obloquy 
heaped on him ? If guilty, what are we to think of the 
House of Peers, especially of the Bishops ? That Hast- 
ings was guilty of "the Begum charge" there cannot 
now be a doubt among rational men, but that he was 
innocent of most of the other charges is almost equally 
certain. The consequence was that doubts were enter- 
tained as to many of the offences imputed to him. And 
he had the benefit of the doubt. Pitt appears to have 
been perfectly impartial on the subject ; but it is not too 
much to assume that Lord Camden and Lord Thurlow 
considered Hastings guilty, or they never would have 
allowed the trial to have been protracted for such a 
length of time. Lord Mansfield took no part in the pro- 
ceedings, but in private expressed his strong disapproba- 
tion of Pitt's conduct., He declared that the servants of 
the public ought to be protected, unless when corrupt ; 
and predicted that at a future period " the Young Minis- 
ter " would be unable, however willing, to protect his 
own adherents ; a prophecy afterwards fulfilled in Lord 
Melville's case. 

The trial of Warren Hastings is remarkable for 
having introduced Mr. Sheridan to public notice. As an 
orator,, second only to Fox and Pitt ; as a dramatist 



( 51 ) 

immeasurably the first of his contemporaries, unap- > 
proached by any successor, unequalled by any prede- 
cessor in the modern drama, Congreve alone excepted. 
He had many blemishes, many weaknesses, some vices 
which have been severely censured in him, although ap- 
plauded in others. " Take him in all and all," he was 
a noble production of nature. 

Richard Brinsley Sheridan, was son of Thomas 
Sheridan, a celebrated actor; his grandfather was a 
clergyman, and an intimate friend of Dean Swift. 
Both father and mother possessed considerable lite- 
rary attainments.* The father had graduated in 
Trinity College, Dublin, and always enjoyed the best 
society that capital afforded, where he was highly re- 
spected, not only as a literary man, and a great per- 
former, but as an exemplary private character. Richard 
was educated at Harrow, where he does not appear to 
have been very diligent, or to have made any great pro- 
ficiency ; he has been esteemed extremely deficient in 
classical literature, and some living writers think that 
they veil their own ignorance by imputing it to Sheridan. 
But although compared with Fox,, Pitt, Windham, 
Burke, or Lord Grenville, his classical attainments 
shine dimly, yet in the present House of Commons 
or in the last unreformed house (1830,) he would have 
been as a classical scholar alone* a shining light. 

Previous to his appearance in the British Senate 
he had attained the highest eminence as a dramatist. 
His School for Scandal* if not the first, is among the 
greatest of the modern comedies. The Rivals is the 
best five-act farce in the English language.! The 

* The father published a dictionary of the English Language, and 
various treatises on Elocution. Mrs. Sheridan wrote Nourjahad, a ro- 
mance ; Sydney Biddu!ph,.a very excellent novel; and. the Discovery,, 
one ef the best modern comedies we have, for which reason it has not 
been acted for fifty years. 

t I, deem that to be a farce, the characters of which are caricatures,. 
Qr. else are greatly exaggerated, a comedy when the characters are 
perfectly natural, or at the most eccentric. The Rivals is an instance, 
of the nrst^the School for Scandal of the second. Moliere's Burgeois 




( 52 ) 

Critic, the best dramatic satire, and the Duenna the 
best comic opera. The fame of these writings was in- 
jurious to the young senator. There was " no precedent" 
of a successful dramatic author being a great orator ; 
besides, he was the son of an actor. Had he married 
an actress, no matter how vulgar her early habits — no 
matter how deficient her education, his prospeets would 
not have been marred. Had he written bad plays, still no 
bar to his greatness. Were he the son of a crafty manu- 
facturer, who had amassed millions by vulgar cunning 
< — by the blood and bones and muscles of infants ; still 
was he destined to be great. But to be the son of a 
player (who was a gentleman by birth) — to be an author,, 
— oh ! genius of aristocracy ;. oh ! Moloch of wealth — 
how intolerable. Notwithstanding the drawbacks men- 
tioned, he bounded, at one spring, to the very highest 
eminence of oratory. On the morning of that eventful 
day he arose a fourth-rate debater; in the evening he 
was in the first class of orators. No tolerable report of 
this speech remains, but from the effect produced (the 
best criterion of a speech) it must have been an oration 
of surpassing eloquence; added to this the unanimous- 
testimony, not alone of his audience, but of Pitt, who 
hated him,, and of Burke, who did not love him, must 
for ever settle the judgment of reflecting men. Pitt 
moved that the house should adjourn, " as they could 
not decide while under the influence of the enchanter's 
wand." Burke said that all the eloquence of " ancient 
and modern times was eclipsed by this speech." It is 
perfectly idle to attribute the effect produced to the de- 
livery alone. It must be recollected that Pitt also was 
a great actor, and that his illustrious father (in Garrick's 
opinion,) was a first rate-performer.* Besides, Sheridan, 

Gentilhomrae is a farce (according to my view ;) his Tartuffe, a 
comedy. 

* Foote said to Garrick that a new performer was to appear shortly, 
who would eclipse every one. " What is his name ?" Garrick eagerly 
exclaimed. " William Pitt." " Aye, Foote, if you engage him at the 
Haymarket, Drury Lane and Covent Garden must close." 



( 53 ) 

although he never equalled this speech, yet maintained! 
his eminence. We must also consider that the same 
faults, as well as the same beauties are to be found in it 
that occur in his subsequent orations. The same glitter, 
the same incorrect taste, and violent antithesis of words, 
not of ideas; an inordinate love of metaphor; an ill di- 
rected play of fancy; a straining after effect; a mock 
sublime. These are the characteristics of Irish elo- 
quence, with which Sheridan was tainted, (in common 
with Grattan, Canning, and Curran.) He had more 
faults than the first, fewer than the last. But these 
blemishes were redeemed by extraordinary merits ; he 
had sparkling wit, rich humour, delicate irony, polished 
sarcasm, fierce invective. It has been proved that many 
of his witticisms were prepared, and that he often re- 
peated himself: but let us consider in answer to the 
first charge, that every dramatic author, especially 
a comic writer, must blot, erase, correct, modify, alter, 
again and again : were the loose papers, the written 
thoughts of every author published with minute accura- 
cy, how many reputations could be long-lived. 

In reply to the second charge, the habit of repeating 
oneself will grow upon every one, whether author, com- 
poser, actor, or orator; it saves trouble, and is very 
convenient. Pitt, who did not suffer from poverty of 
language, or lack of ideas, never for the last ten years 
of his life, spoke on foreign policy, without introducing 
" indemnity for the past, and security for the future." 
Cicero, in his " Oratio de lege Manilia," closes eleven 
sentences with "nee esse videatur:" and in his "Divine 
Philippick," he cannot resist the temptation of reciting 
his own execrable poetry. Nay, Canning, who abounded 
in humour, repeated more than once an indifferent joke 
concerning Bvnkershoek, the celebrated publicist. That 
Sheridan required great preparation is certain ; that 
many of his repartees were previously rehearsed admits 
of no doubt ; and that he did apply to his own use the 
jests of others, we have some striking instances. The 




( 54 ) 

most remarkable was, his appropriation of Fox's joke 
on Pitt's legacy to the Treasury Bench.* But in proof 
that he could be severe or jocular without preparation 
we have three remarkable speeches, all excellent in three 
different lines, all in reply to Pitt.f His theatrical pur- 

* Fox related to Sheridan that he met with an amusing story in the 
Scholia of Aristophanes, of a man who sat a great length of time in one 
seat, so long that when he left it his posteriors remained behind him 
on the seat, and answered any question addressed to the chair. He 
added I should apply this to Addington and Pitt, but it would be too 
indecorous for the House of Commons. The next evening Sheridan 
rose after the premier, and with great gravity said, " Mr. Speaker, I 
lately met with a story in Aristophanes of a man who had sat so long 
on a favourite seat, that when he rose his seat of honour remained be- 
hind. The right honourable member for Cambridge University has 
left the Treasury bench, but has left his posteriors to answer us.*' 
There was it may easily be supposed, a great sensation in the House. 

t On the debate to which the speech from the throne gave rise (in 
1785,) Burke and Sheridan indulged in great merriment. Pitt was 
much offended, and said, M that the present subject was of grave im- 
portance, not suited to pleasantry or fitted for the display of a lively 
imagination. There was a place in which jests and repartees might 
tell, where the honourable member might again gather laurels to add 
to the wreath he so worthily wore, 

" atque sui plausil gaudere theatri. 

Sheridan replied, " I shall not remark on the good taste or good feeling 
which has suggested the remarks of the right honourable gentleman. 
If ever I again attempt a comedy I shall be guilty of great presump- 
tion, which the Chancellor of the Exchequer may excuse. I shall try 
to surpass the hitherto unrivalled character drawn by Ben Jonson, that 
of' The Angry Boy."* 

The second occasion was shortly after Sheridan's second marriage, 
when he absented himself from the House of Commons for a few 
weeks. The night of his reappearance he commented on several 
measures which had already passed the House. Pitt said that if the 
honourable gentleman had been more attentive to his parliamentary 
duties, he must have known that the bills he censured were now be- 
fore the other House. Sheridan answered, that " he had been engaged 
in very important business out of the house, in occupations of which 
the right honourable gentleman could know nothing, of the importance 
of which he could not even form an idea." He proceeded for some 
time in the same strain, amid the boisterous laughter of the House. 
The third occasion was in 1805, on a motion he made for the repeal of 
the Defence Act. Pitt accused him of insincerity towards Addington. 
The reply was terrific. The writer was told by an auditor that Pitt 



( 55 ) 

suits to a certain extent affected his oratory, not only 
his manner but his topics, and not unfrequently his con- 
duct. For instance, his numerous tirades against Na- 
poleon, all in the worst taste, but eminently fitted to the 
capacity of the galleries. He appears to have kept a 
store of claptraps to be used in St. Stephens', or in 
Drury-lane, as occasion might require, and it should ap- 
pear that he was often senatorial in Drury Lane, and 
histrionic in the House of Commons; for instance, the 
speech of Rolla to his troops is nothing better than an 
insane anti-Jacobin speech, or perhaps it may be more 
correctly described as an Irish howl. Sheridan's grand 
failing after all was in taste, the rock on which all Irish 
orators have foundered, from Burke to Canning* As a po* 
litician few men have been more censured or less trusted 
than Sheridan, yet how many temptations did he with* 
stand; how many opportunities for desertion did he fore- 
go 1 He might have sold himself during the French revo- 
lution, when Burke deserted; again after the mutiny of the 
Nore ; and a third time, during the Addington ministry, 
when he refused a splendid situation for his favourite son. 
The great, the fatal blot in his character appears to have 
been his share in the negotiations which followed the 
murder of Mr. Perceval. But what did he gain but the 
consistent gratitude of a prince, and a broken heart 1 
Let his family derive consolation from the following 
character of him by Grattan ; " Rivers of gold might 
flow before him, unheeded and untouched. He would 
pine away his existence amid the vapours of a dungeon, 
sooner than allow one thought to be diverted from pa- 
triotism or honour." 

nearly fainted ; it is certain that he was with difficulty prevented from 
sending a challenge to Sheridan» 



( 56 ) 



CHAPTER VIII. 

From the commencement of the Hastings impeach- 
ment until the admitted insanity of the King, few divi- 
sions took place ; many questions of great importance 
came under consideration which afterwards became 
party questions, but which ought not to have been so 
treated. The two principal were the Repeal of the Test 
and Corporation Acts, and the Abolition of the Slave 
Trade.* All the Tories were opposed to the first, — the 
great majority to the second : the Whigs almost unani- 
mously supported these liberal measures, and ultimately 
carried them. Here were two questions which ought 
never to be the tests of party, yet they became so. 
Why should the Tories support slavery, both of body 
and mind ? Why should the Whigs advocate freedom* 
personal, civil, and religious 1 Does not this great dis- 
crepancy mark the boundary which divides the parties? 
or are we to be told that the Sovereign's will was to in- 
cline the balance ? In that case what becomes of the 
boasted independence of the Tories 1 what of their 
liberality 1 Do they dislike freedom in the abstract, or 
do they always yield to the wishes of the Sovereign 1 

* It is notorious that George III. Stipulated with Mr. Pitt that the 
Catholic question was not to be agitated during his life. It is also 
nearly certain that a similar stipulation was made as to parliamentary 
reform ; but we have no information as to a veto being put on the re- 
peal of the test acts, nor can we imagine what hostility George III. 
could have had to slave emancipation. Pitt's conduct at this time 
therefore was most extraordinary. 






( 57 ) 

In every constitutional conflict is the royal prerogative, 
like the sword of Brennus, to sink the scale into which 
it may be cast ? On what ground do the Tories take 
their stand? The conduct*of Pitt, from the period of 
his triumph over Fox until the commencement of war 
in 1793, was most peculiar. His government was not 
conducted on fixed principles. No one could conjecture 
what measures were to be supported by Ministers — their 
names even gave no indication. Lord Camden (the 
leader in the House of Lords,) had Spent his whole life 
in support of liberal principles ; so had the Duke of Rich- 
mond. In the House of Commons Pitt's main support 
was Dundas, a strict Presbyterian, and (on all religious 
subjects) most liberal and tolerant. WilberforCe, Who 
rose suddenly into eminence at this period by his ardent 
support of slave emancipation, was Pitt's intimate friend; 
and from his large, fortune, and connexion with reli- 
gious sects, possessed of great influence ; no one can 
doubt his sincerity, yet the question was not carried 
until Pitt was in his grave. On the introduction of the 
bill the minister spoke in its favour and postponed it 
to the following session. The repeal of the Test Acts, 
which some months previously was moved by Mr. 
Beaufoy, the Minister opposed ; it was lost by a majority 
of seventy-eight. As if it were necessary to add insult 
to injury j the Bishops were consulted. 

It is unnecessary to state that they all (except Dn 
Shipley and Dr* Watson*) were decidedly of opinion 
that the Corporation and Test Acts ought not to be re- 
pealed. On this solitary occasion, Mr. Pitt was betrayed 
into sincerity. He declared that if the bill passed, the 
t)issenters would possess themselves of all the Corpo- 
rations. This was a singular admission, for it followed, 
that the Dissenters were either the most numerous body 
in England, or the most influential. In the former case* 
what pretext for the continuance of Episcopacy ? In 
the latter, what effect has the preaching of the Esta-* 
blished Clergy produced? The conduct of Pitt was 
6 



( 53 ) 

marked by deep ingratitude. During the struggle 
which succeeded the Coalition Ministry, he had been 
strongly supported by the great mass of the Dissenters, 
who, misled by the names of Richmond and Camden, 
and offended by Lord North, who always opposed 
them, believed they were secure of their object on Pitt's 
success. They were bitterly undeceived. Fox, on the 
other hand, who had suffered by their enmity, supported 
them with that cordiality of heart and nobleness of soul, 
which breathed through all his efforts to liberate and 
enlighten his fellow-creatures. 

The country, however, remained tranquil ; there was 
every appearance of prosperity at home and abroad. 
The calm was at length dispelled. In September, 1788, 
symptoms of madness appeared in the King ; on the 
nineteenth of November, it was announced to the pub* 
lie that the Monarch was of unsound mind, and incapa- 
ble of discharging his regal functions. 



( 59 ) 



CHAPTER IX. 



REGENCY QUESTION. 



It is now universally known, that George the Third 
was several times of weak mind, without any announce- 
ment to the legislature being made. In 1762, he was 
verging on insanity. In 1763 he assented to the peace; 
conduct utterly at variance with his prejudices and 
principles. He had been always eager for war, al- 
ways reluctant to peace. The American war was 
commenced to please him, and concluded against his 
wish. The French war was begun at his instigation, 
closed reluctantly in 1802, eagerly recommenced the 
following year, and continued beyond the close of his 
political life. We cannot, therefore, account for his 
consent to the peace of 1763 on any ground but that of 
enfeebled intellect. On two subsequent occasions, once 
in the House of Lords, another time in the public 
streets, his malady burst forth, but it passed off as ec- 
centricity.* This deception of the people suggests 
grave reflections. Had any private gentleman, pos- 
sessed of good estate, comported himself as George the 
Third he would not have been allowed to manage his 
own property ; yet, after the severe visitation with which 

* In the speech from the throne, on one occasion, he astonished the 
assembly by addressing them as " My Lords and Peacocks." Ano- 
ther day, on his return from Westminster, he put his head out of the 
carriage-window, and called out, " Muffins for sale." 



( 60 ) 

the Monarch was afflicted in 1789, he was permitted 
to originate a most expensive and sanguinary war, and 
to appoint at least fifty Bishops. Much nonsense has 
been vented on the quiet and domestic habits of the 
King, and a comparison has often been drawn between 
the domestic privacy of the English Monarch, and the 
ostentatious publicity of the King of France. But it 
may be alleged in reply, that by this very publicity the 
country is protected from the government of a mo- 
narch of unsound mind ; accordingly, there has not 
been a mad King in France for centuries ; whereas, 
England, from 1789 until 1810, had for its first Magis- 
trate a man of disordered intellects. 

The discussions on the Regency question, in 1788, 
do not exhibit either party in a favourable point of 
view. The Ministerialists professed doctrines almost 
revolutionary ; the opposition supported principles highly 
Monarchical. It has been often said that " Whigs in 
office are Tories ; Tories in opposition are Whigs ;" the 
converse of this proposition was true on the Regency 
question, for the Tories advocated the most liberal doc- 
trines, and the Whigs were Royalists. The only men 
who were perfectly consistent were Lord North and 
his friends. He in the House of Commons, Lord 
Loughborough and Lord Stormont in the House of 
Peers, maintained their consistency by supporting their 
party. But Fox and Pitt forgot their own principles, 
and adopted those of their fathers. When Pitt asserted 
" that the Prince of Wales had no more right to the 
Regency than any other member of the community ;" 
he could not be considered an admirer of hereditary 
Monarchy ; and when Fox declared, " that the heir- 
apparent being of full age, had an indisputable claim to 
the executive authority, during the incapacity of the 
father ;" he altogether forgot the great principles of the 
Revolution. It must be admitted, however, that if 
Monarchy is necessary, its temporary suspension is 
dangerous. If you admit that any part of the Consti- 



( 61 ) 

tution may be in abeyance, how long may the new 
form of Government last 1 Who is to decide the 
question? And if the two Houses of Parliament may 
limit the prerogative of the Crown, or suspend it; 
who is to define the limits 1 who is to regulate the 
period of suspension 1 If Parliament could restrict 
a regent, what limits were there to restrictions ? what 
becomes of the maxim, " that the Monarch never 
dies V 9 The truth is, that on any great crisis, prin- 
ciples are as nothing, expediency and force predomi- 
nate; or else a question of personal popularity arises. 
Had the Prince of Wales possessed common honesty, 
ordinary decency, or the least discretion, he might have 
seized an unrestricted Regency. But he was covered 
with debts, more than suspected of " sharp practice," 
and married to a Catholic* Accordingly, to punish 
him, the Constitution was placed in abeyance. The 
restrictions imposed by the Minister, were of the most 
inconsistent nature; the Regent was restrained from 
creating Peers for three years ;f but he could fill every 
Bishopric that became vacant; and had the Arch- 
bishop of Canterbury died,, he might have tempted the 
entire bench of Bishops. There was no obstacle to the 
Regent dissolving the Parliament, by which he would 
gain sixteen; votes. J He- could create a Lord Keeper, 

* It is now beyond all doubt that the Prince of Wales was married 
to Mrs. Fitznerbert, by a priest on board a small vessel, which was 
within the French lines, consequently a valid marriage according to 
the French laws, and would have been a good marriage in Ireland, 
had it not been for the Act of Parliament which was passed on the 
marriages of the Dukes of Cumberland and Gloucester, the brothers 
of George the Thirds But a very grave question would have arisen 
had this marriage been proved., There is very little doubt that the 
Prince had forfeited his claim to the Crown by this proceeding, and 
might have been legally set aside, but there was little danger, there 
was no chance that the matchless folly of the Red and White Rose 
contest should be again enacted. 

t During the first five years of Pitt's administration, it appeared 
that he had created forty-two Peers ; yet he was brought into office by 
a majority of nineteen in the House of Lords. 

X Namelv^the Scotch Representative Peers. 

6* 



( 62 ) 

although not a Lord Chancellor, unless he appointed 
one of the existing peers. To crown all, the Queen 
had the appointment of the household. We cannot sup- 
pose that the Minister intended this arrangement to 
last many years ; yet from the evidence of the physi- 
cians, there was every prospect of a lengthened in- 
sanity ; this was the only point on which the faculty 
was unanimous. Dr. Warren declared that the King 
never could, recover the entire possession of his facul- 
ties ; Dr.. Willis was of an opinion diametrically oppo- 
site. The malady had now lasted three months, (by 
the Minister's confession,) when it was suddenly an- 
nounced that the king was convalescent:, a public 
thanksgiving took place in St. Paui's; and the deluded, 
rabble thanked God that the country had a. monarch. 
legally sane. It so happened that the, Irish parliament, 
on this occasion, evinced a sounder knowledge of the 
constitution than the English legislature: an address 
passed the Commons unanimously, requesting the 
Prince of Wales to assume the office of regent with full 
powers. An address to the same effect passed the 
Lords. The deputation was in London when the 
King's recovery was announced. It was now evident 
to the premier, that there must be either a legislative 
union or a parliamentary reform. From the discus- 
cussions on the regency, it should appear that the Tories 
are not devoted to hereditary monarchy;; they would 
prefer an elective one, provided it were arbitrary. The 
Whigs, on the other hand, restrain their distrust of 
monarchy for the sake of a regular advancement of 
liberty. They will sometimes wear a royal livery to 
work out reforms, and to effect a regular administra- 
tion of the laws. They are, startling- as. it may sound, 
less prone to changes than the Tories — " nolumus leges 
Anglise mutari," was the motto of their ancestors, who 
extorted Magna Charta from die tyrant John ; it was 
also the device of the Whigs of 1789. The Tories, on 
the other hand, have changed every institution, altered 



( 63 ) 

every law, contradicted every maxim of the constitution. 
In the question we have just considered, the Tories ac- 
tually established the principle that the two Houses of 
Parliament might alter or modify the monarchy at 
pleasure, in fine, they decided that Great Britain is not 
a monarchy, but a Commonwealth. The Tories are 
foreign in their habits and principles; on the regency 
question, they borrowed from the Swedish constitution, 
and from that of Poland ;, from the former, in declaring 
and ruling who was to succeed to the throne ; and in 
the latter, in making the crown elective. The Whigs, 
on the other hand, acted upon the principles of 1688, 
as nearly as possible. In one case, the throne was va- 
cant by abdication ; in the other, by insanity. We must, 
then, admit, that if the Tories are more enlightened, or 
less monarchical, the Whigs are more thoroughly 
British. 



( 64 ) 



CHAPTER X. 



FRENCH REVOLUTION*. 



Were there any dispute as to the regency having; 
been a party question, all doubt was removed by the 
dismissal of four noblemen, who, holding office in the 
household,* had voted against the regency bill. It has 
been generally asserted, that this measure was not de- 
manded by the Minister, but was the Monarch's spon- 
taneous act. It was a most extraordinary proceeding,, 
as these peers, from their position, had the best means 
of forming a judgment on the King's health ; and they 
were disinterested in their votes, as the Regent could not 
remove them. Shortly after, Mr. Beaufoy again at- 
tempted to repeal the Test acts ; his bill was. lost by a 
majority of twenty. Lord Stanhope introduced a bill 
in the Lords for the relief of non-conformists : this wa& 
opposed by the Bishops, and rejected. Mr. Pitt had 
already created forty-two peers. He entered office 
with a majority of nineteen in the Lords; the general 
election gave him the Scotch Peers. How did it hap- 
pen that a measure of which he approved, and which 
was introduced by his relative, should have miscarried ?f 
Can we believe him to have been sincere in a wish to 
repeal the Test Acts ? or can we suppose that he was 

* The Duke of Queensbury, Marquess of Lothian, Lord Carteret, 
and Lord Malmesbury. 

t Earl Stanhope had married a sister of Mr. Pitt. 



( 65 ) 

ignorant of the opinions of the numerous band he had 
sent to the upper House? or would the Bishops have 
dared to oppose any measure he was anxious to carry? 
or are we to be deluded by the parrot cry of " the 
King's conscience ?" The conscience of a man uncon- 
scious of his own existence ! Mr. Wilberforee again in- 
troduced his bill for slave emancipation. The Minister 
supported the bill and cushioned it ; pitied the slaves, 
and consigned them to torture. The year was fated to 
be memorable — the French revolution exploded. 

It cannot be supposed that it is the author's intention 
to attempt even a sketch of the French Revolution. 
More than a thousand volumes have been written on 
this awful drama, which has not yet concluded, although 
perhaps we have arrived at the last act. The foundation of 
the French Revolution was laid in the reign of Louis the 
Fourteenth. This profligate monster, half actor, half 
mountebank, a cold-blooded murderer, a thorough hypo- 
crite, a pretender to religious zeal, and violator of every 
law of God and man, must be held responsible for the 
frightful calamities which befel France. This man was 
indebted for the preservation of his throne to the Tories 
of his day ; all the trophies of Marlborough and Eugene 
were sacrificed for a partial monopoly of the slave trade. 
Notwithstanding his numerous defeats he left France 
more powerful than before; but true religion ceased to 
exist; bigotry and persecution stalked forth; the fi- 
nances were dilapidated ; and a club of showy impostors, 
called the Encyclopaedists, undertook*not only to settle 
the affairs of this world, but also of the next. Louis the 
Fifteenth had all the bad qualities of his grandfather in a 
lesser degree, except his bigotry. There was no mur- 
der on a gigantic scale, no banishment of thousands for 
the sake of a mass; but there was reckless extrava- 
gance ; imprisonment without trial; and taxation with- 
out even the form of representation. The government 
of the country was in the hands of Bishops and strum- 
pets. It reflects great disgrace on the French nation, 



( 66 ) 

that Louis the Fourteenth and his legitimate grandson 
were not conducted to the scaffold. That fate was re- 
served for the best man who had ever sat on the French 
throne, Henry the Fourth excepted. Louis the Sixteenth 
had many virtues, no vices, and but few defects ; his 
talents were moderate, but he was neither deficient in 
knowledge, or in courage ; the former, however, was 
almost useless, the latter was entirely passive. He was 
like George the Third, extremely obstinate, but when 
he yielded it was always at the wrong time. With the 
exception of his second brother, (afterwards Louis the 
Eighteenth,) he was most unfortunate in his relations; his 
wife, by her vices and indiscretions greatly contributed 
to his downfall.* The Count d'Artois, by his extrava- 
gance and debaucheries, gave great offence to the so- 
ber portion of the community ; and the Duke of Orleans 
who was constantly conspiring against the King, 
failed to compensate for his treachery by the display of 
a single virtue. The vast number of the nobility (of 
which the aristocracy entirely consisted,) greatly em- 

* The author has no intention of investigating the guilt, or inno* 
cence of Marie Antoinette; such an inquiry is now of as little interest 
as the conduct of Mary Queen of Scots. He must observe, however, 
that he entertains just as little doubt of the criminality of the French 
Queen, as of that of the Scottish — he founds his opinion not on the 
charges brought against her, but on the defence made for her by Ma- 
dame Campan, who mis-slates facts and perverts what was said by 
others. As an example of the first, she says that Marie Antoinette was 
singularly temperate at her meals. Now the author has been informed 
by an English gentleman of undoubted veracity^ that she had " one 
fault, she was an enormous feeder :" he had opportunities of ascertain- 
ing this, as he attended her suppers twice or three times a week. As 
an example of the second, Madame Campan accuses the Baron de 
Besenval of insinuating that the Queen was in love with him, and ob* 
serves that she sent for him to prevent a duel between the Count d'Ar- 
tois and the Due de Bourbon : but the Baron does not make any insinu- 
ation whatsoever : : he only says that he was received in an apartment 
to which a private staircase led, the very existence of which he was 
previously unaware, although so many years an inmate of the palace. 
He explicitly declares that he was sent for on account of the intended 
duel, and appears to have had not only an esteem but respect for the 
Queen. 



( 67 ) 

barrassed the state. Commerce was disgraceful ; bank- 
ers were looked on with ineffable contempt ; every 
trade, nay, every profession was despised, (the church 
and the army excepted.) The country had not only to 
endure the most numerous and most depraved nobility 
in Europe, but an expensive hierarchy, the greatest 
curse that can befal a country. Middle class there was 
none: there were no yeomanry, no farmers, all the 
bishoprics, all military offices were filled by nobles. 
This state of things might have continued had the fi- 
nances been managed with common care, or common 
honesty ; or had the appetite for military glory been fed ; 
but, alas ! there was no glory, no wealth, no spoliation. 
France had not a share in the partition of Poland, al- 
though (as Louis the Fifteenth had married a daughter 
of a King of Poland,) she was the only power in Europe 
that had a fair claim to interfere in Polish dissensions. 
Instead of aiding Poland, she succoured America ; she 
had the poor satisfaction of wounding Britain; but in 
inflicting the wound her own vitals followed the sting. 
The dreams of naval glory were at once dispelled by 
Rodney's victory. At length the genius of democracy, 
endowed with the strength of Sampson, but afflicted by 
his blindness, dragged down the pillars of the French 
Monarchy, crushing by its fragments the Church and 
the aristocracy, displaying to the eyes of astonished Eu- 
rope, at once a trophy and a tomb. 



( <& ) 



CHAPTER XI. 



EDMUND BURKE* 



The execution of the unfortunate Louis afforded a 
pretext for a declaration of war against France. The 
Whig party was divided ; the Duke of Portland who had 
been the head of the Whigs after the decease of the 
Marquis of Rockingham, went over to the ministry, 
joined by Lord Fitzwilliam, Lord Spencer, Windham, 
Lord Loughborough who was created Chancellor, and 
by Edmund Burke. There is but little doubt that the 
defection was organized by this distinguished man, who 
as a writer, orator, and philosopher, has left but few 
equals. 

Edmund Burke was a native of Ireland, he was edu- 
cated there, and had the misfortune to belong to the 
University of Dublin ; notwithstanding this calamity he 
was an excellent scholar, and deeply imbued with 
knowledge of every description ; he not only possessed 
an exuberant fancy, but a sound judgment, a mascu- 
line understanding, and a mind truly philosophical ; the 
only blemish was his depraved taste ; his description of 
a motley administration, in which he concludes, with 
" here a bit of white, there a bit of black, like patches 
in a truckle bed ;" and his comparison of the Duke of 
Bedford with a whale, in his letter addressed to that 
nobleman and Lord Lauderdale, are instances of the ut* 
most depravation of taste* Again, his conduct in the 



( 69 ) 






House of Commons during a debate on the war of 1793, 
when he threw a dagger on the floor, must be deemed a 
specimen of barbarism, such as no aggregate meeting 
of Irishmen could equal, even when under the influence 
of liquor. His unhappy temper over which he had no 
control; and his extreme vulgarity of manner, combining 
the coarsest Irish accent with the most revolting pronun- 
ciation, must have been serious drawbacks on his suc- 
cess as an orator. His ignorance too of Latin prosody, 
was a grave offence, and justly so, in the House of 
Commons ; # besides he was too diffuse, it would be un- 
just to call him prolix, and his speeches were more the 
charges of a judge, than the orations of a senator. Men 
do not like to be lectured or advised ; a lecture is always 
offensive, and as advice is seldom given, except with a 
view of asserting superiority or else of betraying the ad- 
vised, it is often suspected and generally unwelcome. 
Accordingly Burke was never popular in the House of 
Commons. 

The period during which Burke shone with greatest 
brightness was that of the American war. On that 
vast field he was almost without a rival; and was the 
only great statesman who was perfectly consistent 
during that revolution which wrested from us an entire 
continent. Fox commenced his political career as a 
lord of the treasury under Lord North, towards the com- 
mencement of the war, which he was at first inclined 
to support. Lord Chatham and Lord Camden were for 
concessions, but the independence of America never was 
contemplated by them until we were on the verge of 
bankruptcy, and when reconciliation became impossible. 
Lord Shelburne, who professed to follow in the footsteps 
of Lord Chatham, concluded the ignominious peace of 

* The Reverend Sidney Smith says, " that a man seldom recovers 
from the effects of making a false quantity on his outset in public 
life :" Burke on one occasion, in the quotation " magnum est vectigal 
parsimonia," pronounced the second syllable of " vectigal " short, and 
it was remembered to the day of his death." 
7 




( ™ ) 



1783, and was supported by Pitt and by Lord Thurlow, 
who had sat in the cabinet with Lord North during the 
entire of the American war. For many years Burke 
was without a rival in the House of Commons, there 
was no instance of such supremacy either before or 
since. 

It is not then to be wondered at, when Fox, Pitt, and 
Sheridan at once attained a superiority, that his temper 
gave way, especially as in the secret councils of the op- 
position, he still maintained his supremacy. Fox had 
become the leader of the Whigs, but Burke was the con- 
ductor. It is now known that the India Bill, (which to 
this day is reviled by Royalists and Tories) was the 
emanation of Burke's master mind, the impeachment of 
Warren Hastings, is universally admitted to have been 
altogether his work, and undertaken at his suggestion 
alone. When he abandoned all his former principles, 
and published his too celebrated reflections on the French 
Revolution, he became the conductor of the Tories, and 
beyond all question, if the restoration of the Bourbons, 
was a glorious achievement, the triumph was that of 
Burke, and not that of Pitt. 

Burke, from the first, contemplated the re-establish- 
ment of the throne of " France and Navarre ;" Pitt had 
no such intention ; he constantly disavowed it, and was 
sincere in his disavowal, as he entered into negotiations 
with the French Republic, and allowed his subalterns to 
conclude the treaty of Amiens. It would be difficult to 
describe the effect produced by the work in question ; it 
actually threw the majority of the English people into 
a state of delirium, in which they continued during ten 
years. As a composition, it is of the very highest order 
of eloquence, equal to the best writings of Cicero, free 
from his egotism, and minute elaboration of style. In 
argument it is utterly deficient ; in reasoning, almost in- 
coherent; but in declamation, in appeals to the passions, 
in skilful distortion of facts, in highly-wrought imagery, 
we can find few writings in the English language to 



( 71 ) 

equal it. The author appears to have proceeded a con- 
siderable way in his task before he was aware of what 
he had undertaken to prove. He suddenly recollected 
that there had been a revolution in England sometime 
in 1688, (less justifiable, perhaps, than that in France, 
a century later.) If we are to adopt the reasoning 
of Burke, the Revolution of 1688, although a glo- 
rious achievement, was not to serve either as a pre- 
cedent or an example ; or else the British had an exclu- 
sive right to revolt. The French must endure despo- 
tism, because legitimate. When Burke wrote these 
" reflections," he had past the age of seventy ; there is in 
this book a freshness, a vigour of style, quite extraordi- 
nary ; and it was not the last note of the dying swan ; 
for the letter to the " Duke of Bedford and the Earl of 
Lauderdale," evinces the same great powers in altoge- 
ther a different department of composition. The wither- 
ing invective, the unscrupulous hardihood of assertion 
in this pointed diatribe, bear so close a resemblance to 
the letters of Junius, that it should appear that both pro- 
ductions belonged to the same author. Of all the writers 
to whom Junius has been attributed, it appears to me that 
Burke has the strongest claim. No man had the same 
motive for concealment, and no other writer could af- 
ford to forego the fame ; and, lastly, no one had the 
same imitative power, as was shown by his imitation of 
Lord Bolingbroke's style, in his " Vindication of Natural 
Society."* It is an extraordinary proof of Burke's ge- 

* Many volumes have been written on the authorship of Junius. 
The strongest case appears, to me to be in favour of Burke, and for the 
three reasons given above. No man had the same motive for conceal- 
ment, (except Lord George Germain, who was quite unequal to the 
task,) because how could he accept of a Peerage from the monarch 
whom he had treated so severely in Junius's letter to the King ? Great 
as was the inconsistency of Burke, it would have been tenfold greater 
had both the letters of Junius, and the reflections on the French Revo- 
lution appeared in his collected works. Again, what contemporary wri- 
ter was there (except Burke,) who would not have immeasurably risen 
in public estimation by being known as the author of Junius ? Thirdly, 
Burke possessed great versatility of style, his imitation of Bolingbroke 



( 72 ) 

nius, that he not only maintained his great reputation 
after his defection from liberal principles, but to this 
day, he is cited as the great authority against revolu- 
tions, the great support of social order, the mairfstay of 
legitimacy. Every Royalist, whether volunteer or mer- 
cenary, borrows weapons from his armoury. Chateau- 
briand, the most eloquent writer the Royalists possess, is 
but a feeble reflection of Burke, and bears to him the same 
resemblance that the pictures of a camera-obscura do to 
living landscapes. Burke is Achilles after the death of Pa- 
troclus ; Chateaubriand, the Son of Thetis in petticoats. 
On the other side, Burke was the wise author of retrench- 
ment; the first who struck a blow at sinecures: the 
great purifier of the House of Commons, the founder of 
Parliamentary reform : the first who demonstrated the 
wisdom and justice of Catholic Emancipation. Never 
was man so inconsistent with himself; the writings of 
the last seven years of his life appear to have been writ- 
ten in reply to his former productions. A few painful 
reflections intrude. If Burke had the philosophy of 
Cassius, it is to be feared he had also the " itching palm." 
When his party was in office, the place he selected was 
that of Paymaster of the Forces, which yielded an in- 
come of ten thousand a-year, and required but little 
toil. When he joined Pitt he was rewarded by a pen- 
sion of three thousand a-year, for three lives. This was 
not all, with the baseness of a Saxon deserter, he fired 
on the ranks from which he fled, renounced all his for- 
mer friendships, reviled Fox, advised his impeachment, 

imposed on the critics for a long time. Nothing is more remarkable 
than the carelessness of the writers on Junius, except their dogmatism 
and presumption. Of late years Mr. Charles Lloyd appears to have ' 
been the person marked out as the author, and one reason assigned is 
that he died a few days after the last letter of Junius addressed to Lord 
Camden, and published January 21, 1772. This would be a highly 
important fact, as accounting for the sudden termination of Junius; 
but Junius, whoever he was, was alive and well on January 19, 1773, 
as appears by a private note addressed by him to Woodfall, printed in 
the edition of Junius, 1812, 3 vols, 8vo« 



/ 



( ? 3 ) 

although not ten years previously he had pronounced on 
him one of the most highly-wrought panegyrics in the 
English language, and declared it to have been the fruit 
of " twenty years' meditation." On his death-bed he re- 
fused to see Fox. Where was his philosophy ? where 
his Christianity ? 

No man ever gave better advice, no man set a worse 
example. 

" The wisest, greatest, meanest of mankind." 



7* 



; 



( 74 ) 



CHAPTER XII. 



LORD KENYON 



The period which elapsed from 1792 until the peace 
of Amiens, ten years later, is in my opinion the most 
disgraceful in English history ; the constitution placed in 
abeyance, imprisonment without trial, the entire com- 
mon law repealed for a time ; capital punishment at- 
tached to offences which, from the days of Alfred to the 
reign of George the Third, were visited by the slightest 
punishment. A new law of treason introduced such as 
the advisers of Charles the First, or James the Second 
never contemplated. The doctrine of constructive trea- 
son, promulgated now for the first time, placed the lives 
and liberties of the entire community at the mercy of 
the Attorney General ; when to this startling novelty 
was added the system of special juries, and when we 
consider, that all the judges, without exception, were 
high Tories deeply imbued with veneration for preroga- 
tive, our wonder is that any vestige of the constitution 
remains ; and deep is our gratitude to those who have not 
only preserved, but restored it. At this time Sir John 
Scott was Attorney General ; Sir John Mitford, Solici- 
tor General ; Lord Kenyon, Chief Justice of the King's 
Bench; the leading counsel for State Prisoners was 
Thomas Erskine. Of the two former I shall speak here- 
after ; the present appears to be the fitting time to at- 
tempt sketches of the Chief Justice and the great advo- 
cate* 



( 75 ) 

Lloyd Kenyon was a native of Wales ; his name is 
very uncommon, and it is not historical; he must have 
been of an extremely low family, as the Welsh lay \ 
great stress on pedigree, and would not have failed to 
have given him a long line of ancestors, were there 
any men of ordinary respectability among his pro- 
genitors. Where he was educated we know not, but 
to scholarship of any kind (except legal) he had no 
pretensions ; out of his profession he was brutally igno- 
rant, and was as illiberal as he was unenlightened. 
The correspondence between him and George the 
Third on the coronation oath, (which his family was 
so ill-advised as to publish) evinces a miserable narrow- 
ness of mind, a savage bigotry, an ignorance of all 
great principles of legislation, a blindness of mind, an 
opacity of intellect, such as no other English lawyer 
of eminence ever exhibited. Of his progress at the 
bar we know nothing, but his business must have been 
very considerable, as he was appointed Attorney Gene- 
ral on Mr. Pitt's defeat of the coalition ; shortly after- 
wards he became Master of the Rolls, and on Lord 
Mansfield's retirement in 1789, Chief Justice of the 
King's Bench, on which occasion he was raised to the 
peerage. Never did a man present a greater contrast 
to another than he did to his predecessor. Mansfield 
who belonged to an ancient family, appeared born to 
be a senator, and a patrician magistrate. Kenyon 
was like a vulgar tribune by some mistake or tumult, 
invested with consular dignity, and betrayed, by his 
coarseness and barbarian dialect, the mean source from 
whence he sprung. Mansfield was too fond of the 
principles of equity. Kenyon, although Master of the 
Rolls for some years, held equity in great horror, and 
not only did he exclude all the doctrines of equity from 
the King's Bench, but he invested common law with 
more than its natural rigidity, and in doing so often ef- 
fected great injustice. In some respects, however, 
he was a most useful judge, he rendered the law of libel 



( « ) 

somewhat more intelligible than it had been ; and in the 
cases of Finnerty and Williams he established a most 
admirable principle, namely, that notorious libellers 
cannot recover damages in an action for libel. In 
crown prosecutions for libel, however, he was a most 
pernicious judge, he would not refine like Lord Mans- 
field, nor deliver a beautiful metaphysical disquisition 
which although it might mislead a jury yet often led 
to an acquittal; but he stated the law of libel with 
strict accuracy, and if he saw the jury at all puzzled 
would instantly declare that in his opinion the publi- 
cation in question was a libel. The consequence was 
that the unfortunate printer was almost always found 
guilty, and the savage sentence of two years imprison- 
ment, and a heavy fine was uniformly pronounced. In 
the law of adultery he introduced most salutary im- 
provements, or rather defined accurately what the law 
was, for in cases of criminal conversation Lord Mans- 
field had introduced refinements, and nice distinctions ; 
for instance in the celebrated case of Lord Grosvenor 
v. the Duke of Cumberland, he told the jury " that the 
rank of the parties made no difference as to damages," 
for this he was severely attacked by Junius, and it was 
most unfairly asserted that he arrived at this conclusion 
because the defendant was brother to the king. Lord 
Kenyon in actions of Crim. Con. always directed the 
jury to give heavy damages when the plaintiff's cha- 
racter was unimpeached. On the other hand, if any 
collusion appeared, or any the slighest connivance on 
the part of the husband, he directed a verdict for the 
defendant. The consequence was that he undoubtedly 
\ checked in a very great degree, the adulteries of the 
\ aristocracy which had become most disgracefully fre- 
'quent; indeed had it not been for Lord Kenyon there 
is no saying where the mischief would have stopped. 
In his habits he was extremely penurious, wearing 
patched shoes, and clothes until they were threadbare. 
This meanness tended greatly to make him unpopular 



( 77 ) 

with the bar, by the Attorneys he was abhorred ; for 
whatever reason he had a violent antipathy to their 
profession, if he saw an Attorney attempt to suggest 
any point to his counsel he would address the barris- 
ter, and say, Mr. " turn a deaf ear to that viper." It 
is greatly to the credit of his taste that he should have 
loved and admired Erskine, and should have cordially 
detested Mr. Law ; neither of these able men was a 
great lawyer, nor was there one perhaps at the King's 
Bench bar during any period of Lord Kenyon's judi- 
cial career. The consequence was that he despatched 
business with great ease to himself, and satisfaction 
to the suitors being, in the King's Bench as a lawyer 
" facile princeps." After all, we must consider that he 
was Chief Justice of the King's Bench during the most 
eventful period of the last century. He ascended the 
Bench in 1789, and died in office during 1802; had a 
Gibbs or an Ellenborough presided in the King's Bench 
during that period, we should have had a revolution. 
When we consider who was the successor of Lord 
Kenyon we must regard his death a great public ca- 
lamity. To conclude, he had that most rare quality of 
a Judge — honesty, and to use the words of Sir Anthony 
Hart, " If a judge discharges his duty with integrity, he 
may rest assured that sooner or later the public will do 
justice to his motives." 



( 78 ) 



CHAPTER XIII. 



LORD ERSKINE. 



It is somewhat singular that the advocate of the peo- 
ple, should have belonged to an ancient, and illustrious 
family. Erskine was a younger son of the Earl of 
Buchan ; his original destination was the army in which 
he served for a short time ; he then entered the navy, 
but from despair of promotion, and perhaps from a feel- 
ing that he was not in his natural sphere, he quitted his 
second profession, and was called to the bar. He had 
very soon an opportunity of displaying his great powers. 
Captain Baillie, an officer of much talent and consider- 
able science, having been prosecuted for what was 
deemed a libel on Lord Sandwich, then first Lord of 
the Admiralty, his defence was entrusted to Erskine, 
who by his speech on that occasion at once attained 
the highest eminence. The Whig party to which he 
was attached by principle as well as by family, came 
into power a very few years after the delivery of this 
speech, and raised him to the rank of King's Counsel. 

From this time his forensic career was one of un- 
interrupted, unclouded splendour. As an advocate, he 
possessed every possible requisite, except homour, and 
a power of ridicule ; these defects, however, he supplied 
by comic acting and playful sarcasm.* His eloquence 

* On one occasion he was engaged in a case relating to a Welsh es- 
tate, all the parties were Welsh, and it was Erskine's object to turn 



( ™ ) 

was almost of the very highest order, and its flight was 
uniform and equable; although he often rose to the 
sublime, he never, like Burke and Curran, sunk into 
meanness or vulgarity. Of classical learning he had lit- 
tle more than the rudiments ; he knew nothing of Greek, 
and had but a slender acquaintance with Latin. But he 
compensated for this by his deep study not only of Mil- 
ton and Shakspeare, but the less familiar authors of the 
old English school, besides his close intimacy with Fox 
and Windham, impregnated him as it were with the 
pure Saxon idiom, and Lord Mansfield, who was Chief 
Judge in the principal Court of his practice, was a stri- 
king proof that the most abstruse points of law might be 
illustrated by the most beautiful and most expressive 
diction. With these examples, and aided by great 
natural powers, it is not surprising that he should have 
attained so complete a mastery over the English lan- 
guage. He possessed in an eminent degree the art of 
investing vulgar and unimportant subjects with interest, 
by the admirable diction in which he clothed his ideas. 
There was a sober dignity in his arguments, a decent 
splendour in his imagery, which illustrated but did not 
overcharge the subject. There was no false metaphor, 
no meretricious ornament : but there was throughout 
chaste magnificence. His speech in defence of Stock- 
dale is generally considered his masterpiece : but his 
defence of Hardy, and his speech on behalf of Hatfield, 

the matter into ridicule, as the law was against him. Accordingly, 
he pretended to be unable to pronounce the names of the places named 
in the pleadings, and stammered in a most ludicrous manner. Lord 
Kenyon, anxious for the harmony of his native language, undertook to 
set him right; and at length he broke forth, "Really, Mr. Erskine, the 
pronunciation is not so difficult, it only requires a little management 
of the gutturals ;" this was repeated three or four times. At length, 
Erskine, in pronouncing the name of the celebrated vale Llangollen, 
pretended that he had broken a tooth. Every one in court, except 
Lord Kenyon, was convulsed with laughter; he was for several mi- 
nutes unable to understand the jest. 



( 80 ) 

are equally great in a different degree. In the latter 
case there is very little doubt that a conviction must 
have taken place had it not been for his argument. 
Lord Kenyon entertained a very strong impression 
against the prisoner, which Erskine, succeeded in ef- 
facing. 

His speech for the defendant in Howard against 
Bingham is amongst the most beautiful and ingenious 
of his orations. His daring assertion, " that the seducer 
was the aggrieved person; and the injured husband 
the first offender," would, coming from any other advo- 
cate, have utterly ruined his case. When we consider too 
that Lord Kenyon was the Judge who was a most rigid 
moralist, and severe rebuker of adultery ; and when 
even he was so carried away by the resistless force of 
eloquence as to tell the jury it " was a most unhappy 
case," we are lost in admiration at the powers of the 
orator.* A proof how qualified he was to shine, not 
only in the greatest, but in the most vulgar cases, may 
be found in a speech (not published in the collection 
edited by himself,) on the trial of John Motherhill for a 
rape, which took place at the Sussex assizes in 1783 or 
1784. On this occasion he stated the case against the 
prisoner, and the quiet, sober manner in which he de- 
tailed the facts, the becoming decency of language, the 
gravity, nay, the pathos, which he infused into his nar- 
rative, was such as to convert a trial which was ludi- 
crous and disgusting, into an interesting domestic tragedy. 
But it was in cases of constructive treason and state pro- 
secutions for libel that his noblest exertions were made. 
To him and to Fox we are indebted for the preservation 
of trial by jury. The king, the bench, the bar, the 
senate, quailed before this intrepid advocate. In the 
House of Commons he would have been the first at any 

* The effect produced was such, that the Jury only gave five hun- 
dred pounds damages. 



( 81 ) 

other period, but he was among a race of giants, and 
had his own forensic reputation to encounter. Law- 
yers are always suspected in the House of Commons, 
and are either feared or hated. They are too apt to 
become mere partisans, and to regard their " unlearned 
colleagues" as their clients, who are bound to follow 
their advice, and defer to their opinion. It is only as 
in the instances of Romilly and Mackintosh, when the 
character of the lawyer is blended with that of the 
philosopher, that it commands an unreluctant respect. 
This great man was not exempt from foibles. Among 
them were vanity and egotism. He was perpetually 
the hero of his own narrative, both in public and pri- 
vate. On one occasion, during a most important state 
trial, he informed the jury that " he could not be a demo- 
crat, as he had royal blood in his veins." At the close 
of a splendid oration, he threw himself into the attitude 
of a Laocoon, and moaned forth, "you see how I am 
tearing myself to pieces." During the Queen's trial in 
1821, in arguing on the improbability of an intrigue be- 
ing carried on during a sea voyage, he gravely informed 
the house that he never was disposed to an amour on 
board a ship, and that " he had as strong passions as any 
man living." 

Foibles of this kind, however, are amusing and excu- 
sable. A great man is not degraded by a few weak- 
nesses. Among other amiable qualities which he pos- 
sessed, was that of a rational fondness for animals. He 
introduced several bills to prevent cruelty to animals* 
and, beyond all doubt, by his legislation on this subject, 
greatly improved both the morals and habits of the peo- 
ple. We shall conclude this very imperfect sketch 
without adverting to affairs of gallantry* in which it has 
been said that Erskine was often engaged. If he had 
vices, he could afford to have them. He had virtues 
8 



( 82 ) 

enough to outbalance all his own vices added to those 
of his detractors.* 

Nam vitiis nemo sine nascitur optimus ille est 
Qui minimis urgetuf- 1 — . Horatius. 

* The following anecdote has been related of him. A worthy baro- 
net, having a very important ejectment case for trial at the Norwich 
assizes, called on Erskine at his chambers, to talk to him on the sub* 
ject. He had already read his brief, and was master of the case. His 
client having bored him for some time, asked him how he would state his 
case. Erskine rung the bell and desired that Judge Carlo should be sent 
for. Soon after a huge Newfoundland dog came in, and Erskine, having 
put his wig and gown on the dog, placed him in a chair and made a 
speech to him. Carlo behaved with becoming gravity, sometimes 
giving a friendly bark. You see, sir, said Erskine, the court is with 
me. The baronet went away in no very good humour, telling his at- 
torney he had retained a madman for his counsel. He was, however, 
of a very different opinion, when he heard Erskine state his case at the 
Norwich assizes ; more especially when a verdict was given in his fa- 
vour, by which he recovered a large estate. 



( 83 ) 



CHAPTER XIV. 

IRELAND. 

The administration which existed from the com- 
mencement of the war, until 1801, was a mixed one. 
There were, of necessity, many " open questions,"* but 
the extent of the war, the disturbances and discontents 
at home, forced the cabinet to adjourn the consideration 
of these important subjects : this they were enabled to 
do from the enormous majority they commanded in the 
House of Commons. But Ireland could not be treated 
as neutral ground ; it was evident to the minister that if 
Protestants and Catholics coalesced, the Irish could 
make what stipulations they pleased. The revolution 
of 1782, the decision of the Irish parliament on the re- 
gency question in 1789, proved distinctly that a crisis 
might arise when England and Ireland would not act 
together. For instance : had the Irish Whigs taken the 
same view of the French war as Fox, how was the 
government to be carried on ? But war is always po- 
pular in Ireland. Accordingly, the minister, instead of 
violent opposition, had cordial and nearly unanimous 
support. Whether from gratitude or policy, it is now 
useless to inquire, Pitt allowed a bill to be introduced in 
1793, granting large concessions to the Catholics of Ire- 
land. It passed by a considerable majority. Nothing 
could have been more injudicious than the details of this 

* Among others, Catholic emancipation, the slave trade, parliamen- 
tary reform. 



( 84 ) 

bill ; it commenced at the wrong end. Catholics were 
ineligible to seats in Parliament, but the elective fran- 
chise was conceded to forty shilling freeholders. All 
the professions were opened to them, but in the navy a 
Catholic could not obtain a higher rank than that of 
commander; in the army no higher than that of cap- 
tain ; and at the bar he could not attain the rank of 
King's Counsel, although he might hold a patent of pre- 
cedence. A Catholic was eligible to the magistracy, but 
was excluded from the office of High Sheriff. It was 
very clear to every discerning man that complete eman- 
cipation must follow, sooner or later : such was the in- 
tention of Pitt. Accordingly, in December, 1794, Lord 
Fitzwilliam was sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant, 
with full power to grant Catholic emancipation. Ar- 
rangements were made for forming a Whig ministry in 
Ireland. Mr, Ponsonby was named as Chancellor, Mr. 
Curran as Attorney-General, Mr. Fletcher, Solicitor- 
General. Mr. Grattan declined office for the present; 
but it was understood that he was shortly to be Chief 
Secretary. The situation of affairs was anomalous. A 
Lord Lieutenant, with two Chancellors, one without 
the great seal. Law advisers without office, and un- 
sworn Privv Counsellors. Mr. Grattan introduced a 
bill for the complete emancipation of the Irish Catholics : 
it was. read a first time. The new appointments were to 
take place on the bill passing into a law; in the mean 
time, Mr. Beresford was dismissed from his office of 
First Commissioner of the Revenue — a place of im- 
mense emolument and great influence. This dismissal 
was a great mistake.* He belonged to the most pow- 
erful family in Ireland, and managed the Beresford par- 
ty in the House of Commons. He instantly sailed for 
England, obtained an interview with the King, and ter- 

* Mr. Fletcher advised that every one should be dismissed except 
Mr. Beresford, and that a short money bill should be passed. Twenty- 
five years afterwards, Mr. Grattan told him that he had been right in 
his advice, and all the others wrong in not adopting it. 



( 85 ) 

rifled him into repentance. The monarch sent for Mr. 
Pitt, and informed him he must retrace his steps. The 
Minister yielded : Lord Fitzwilliam was recalled ; his 
loss was attested by the tears of millions. A rebellion 
exploded ; it was soon suppressed ; but the smouldering 
embers burst into a conflagration three years later. In 
May 1798 the too celebrated, melancholy, disgraceful, 
Irish rebellion burst forth. 

*F- 3|f 3K $£ * •!? * 1» 

Many volumes have been written on the Irish Rebel- 
lion ; they are all false. It is not surprising that at this 
period and for years after, men, blinded by passion, and 
stimulated by revenge or disappointment, should con- 
temn truth, falsify every character, and distort every 
fact; but it is strange, that at this day, many should 
still pertinaciously cling to exploded falsehoods. It is 
still believed that the rebellion of 1798 was a Catholic 
insurrection, and commenced for Popish supremacy; 
when all the leaders and organizers of the insurrection 
were (with but three exceptions) Protestants. Many 
were suspected of being rebels who were perfectly inno- 
cent; multitudes were falsely accused ; not a few judi- 
cially murdered. Many deeply implicated have escaped, 
some of whom are living at this day. It has been often 
asserted (and the writer believes with truth) that the 
Irish Rebellion was fermented and encouraged by go- 
vernment for the purpose of carrying the union into ef- 
fect. Of this diabolical scheme the English government 
was innocent; but that the Irish executive should have 
been ignorant of an organization of nearly eighty thou- 
sand insurgents, planned and matured by men of talents, 
family, and fortune, is utterly inconceivable. The re- 
bellion had been five years in preparation, how did it 
happen that government was in ignorance for so long a 
period 1 It must, I fear,, be conceded that the Irish ex- 
ecutive, or rather its prompters, the Irish Tories, were 
anxious for a rebellion in order (to use their own favour- 
ite phrase) that they might " settle the country." It 

8* 



( 86 ) 

would be well if the details of the Irish Rebellion could 
be consigned to eternal oblivion. The conduct of the 
rebels and of the government was equally atrocious. If 
the insurgents, maddened by liquor, murdered prisoners, 
and on one occasion set fire to a barn, in which were 
some hundred human beings, who perished in the flames, 
let it be recollected that thousands were tortured with 
the connivance of government,* and multitudes con^ 
demned to death, in defiance of every principle of law 
or justice. The profound ignorance, the signal incapa- 
city of many of the Irish judges, the reckless profligacy of 
the juries who in most cases were selected from Orange 
Corporations, rendered conviction certain in every case 
in which there was a prosecution, and execution fol- 
lowed in twenty-four hours. The rebellion was effectu-- 
ally suppressed in six months; but for three years there 
was no law, no justice, no security for property, nothing 
but fraud, tyranny, and murder, desolation and despair. 

j . Animus meminisse horret Iuctuque refugit. 

During this unhappy period, the position of the Irish 
Whigs was one of great difficulty ;. if they opposed 
government, they were branded as rebels ; if they sup^ 
ported them on any occasion, they were deemed trim- 
mers and spies. In the mean time, every newspaper 
opposed to government was seized or prosecuted, and 
the press in its pay calumniated in the most outrageous 

* It was a common practice to have men flogged in the court-yards 
of Dublin Castle ; multitudes were punished in a place called Beres- 
ford's Riding House, not far from the Custom-House of Dublin. Sir 
Charles Ormsby, who was counsel to the Commissioners of Customs 
(a place worth five thousand a-year) was quite an amateur in this 
practice; on one occasion, he went with a party of yeomanry to the 
shooting lodge of Mr. George Ponsonby, with the avowed intention of 
flogging him according to military practice. Most fortunately, Mr. 
Ponsonby was not at home. The same worthy, on occasion of a peti- 
tion being presented in the House of Commons, on behalf of a school- 
master of the name of Wright, who had been flogged by order of Sir 
Thomas Fitzgerald, rose in his place, and declared that he was asto« 
nished that "so much fuss was made about the fellow's sore back." 



( 87 ) 

manner, every member of the Whig party.* The un- 
happy errors of Lord Edward Fitzgerald afforded an 
excellent pretext for calumniating the Duke of Leinster. 
Lord Charlemont and Lord Moira escaped with some 
vulgar abuse in the House of L.ords from Lord Clare. 
Grattan, Ponsonby, Curran and Fletcher were de- 
nounced. Grattan was obliged to retire to England 
for some time, the second was ordered to be arrested,! 
but he was not found at home, and the next day brought 
wiser counsel ; the last two were reserved until some 
others had been previously disposed of. The period 
for carrying into effect the legislative union had ar- 
rived ; the government began to conciliate and betray. 
A legislative union between Great Britain and Ire- 
land had been long meditated. The different views of 
the two legislatures, both on the Irish propositions, and 
the Regency question, were embarrassing to the last 
degree. It was also evident that Catholic emancipa- 
tion must have taken place had it not been for the re- 
bellion. There was also great danger of a parliamen- 
tary reform being carried, in which case that measure 
must have passed in England ; the English Catholics 
would have been emancipated ; and what was most 
dreaded, the test and corporation acts must have been 
repealed. The true cause of the resistance to Catholic 
emancipation was the dread of the Dissenters, who un- 
questionably must at this period have gained the ascen- 
dancy, had all restraints been removed. An union 
based on fair principles, beyond all question would have 
been a great benefit to, both countries. The Irish par- 

* In Faulkner's Dublin Journal, in which Mr. John Giffard (the 
father of the editor of the Standard) had. a, principal share, the follow- 
ing paragraph appeared: "The country can never again be quiet 
until Ponsonby, Grattan, Curran, and Fletcher, are transported to 
Botany Bay." 

t There are two versions of this story ; one is that Sir C. Ormsby 
went to arrest Mr. Ponsonby, by order from the government : the se- 
cond is that Sir Charles had no authority, but merely went as an 
amateur of flogging. 



( 88 ) 

liament was dreadfully corrupt, and from its structure 
was of necessity immoral. The House of Commons 
consisted of three hundred members ; sixty-five sat for 
counties ; two for the university ; the remainder for 
cities, and for close boroughs, which last constituted a 
majority of the representatives. The House of Lords 
i { was also in a very peculiar state : there were eighteen 

! Bishops, and four Archbishops ; of these many were Eng- 
/ lishmen who never saw Ireland until a short period be- 

( fore their ordination. In addition to this evil Mr. Pitt 

i was author of another; He created a very considerable 
number of Englishmen Irish peers, who not only had 

J no property in Ireland, but no connexion of any kind 
with that country. A practice had also prevailed of 
raising the two Chief Justices and the Chief Baron to 
the Peerage. Bishops, also, who had promising sons, 
were created peers in order that the clerical progeny 
might walk in their fathers' footsteps. The conse- 
quence of this number of Bishops and Judges in the i 
House of Lords was, that in that august assembly, 
there was but little law, and less religion. Thus there * 
was a House of Commons which did not represent the 
people, even virtually; a House of Peers which did not 
reflect the Irish Aristocracy ; a Bench of Bishops which 
did not represent the Irish clergy. Ought this Parlia- 
ment to have continued ? Not as it was ; but it should 
have been reformed, not annihilated. There were two 
modes of effecting this object ; the first by a total an- 
nihilation of pocket boroughs, and at the same time 
raising the elective franchise to ten pounds ; the second 
by incorporating both Houses of Parliament into one, 
like the old Scotch Parliaments. But the danger of 
example to England was to be apprehended ; a reformed 
Irish House of Commons must have produced reform 
in England. The Union, then, having been determined 
on, the Minister found difficulties such as he could not 
expect; profligacy such as he could not previously 
have conceived. It became necessary to purchase a 



( 89 ) 

majority of both Houses. It was done. More than 
fifty Irish Peerages, a large number of British, advance- 
ments in the Peerage without limit, eight seats on the 
Judicial Bench, ten Bishoprics, sinecure places, pen- 
sions innumerable, and half a million sterling were paid 
for this most iniquitous bargain. The merit of the 
Union belongs altogether to the Tories. It was op- 
posed in the British Parliament by the Whigs. In the 
Irish Houses, although the minorities contained many 
Tories, yet the Whig supporters of the Union did not 
(it is believed) amount to six. We shall consider here- 
after whether the repeal of the Union is either possible 
or expedient. 

It is now certain that a rebellion was organized in the 
year 1794, not only in Ireland, but also in England and 
Scotland. The leaders in each country were in com- 
munication with one another. Few of the conspirators 
of 1794 had any connexion with the rebellion of 1798; 
but a small number of the insurgents, in the latter year, 
were connected with the former conspiracy. Thomas 
Addis Emmet is almost the only man of note who is 
proved to have been engaged in both rebellions ; but 
there was one feature of the Irish insurrection which 
did not appear in England or Scotland : there was an 
active correspondence between France and Ireland, and 
accordingly a French fleet, conveying an army of 
eighteen thousand men, anchored in Bantry Bay in 1794; 
the English and Scotch republicans were ignorant of 
this arrangement, and most certainly never meditated 
seeking for French assistance. It may be safely con- 
cluded that this French alliance with the Irish insurgents 
was destructive of the meditated revolution. It revolted 
against the feelings of both English and Scotch. State 
prosecutions were carried on with unrelenting severity. 
In England there were but few convictions; in Ireland 
and in Scotland they were very numerous. In the for- 
mer country, the law of treason being different from 
that of England, conviction was easy ; in the latter, the 



( 90 ) 

judges enacted laws to suit each case, and awarded 
punishment according to their own notions of equity ; 
they also browbeat, as far as they could with safety, the 
counsel for the prisoners. Scotland having no repre- 
sentatives in the House of Commons,* and but one Whig 
of the sixteen representative peers ; that noble country, 
•' in which a Buchanan wrote, a Wallace fought, and a 
Fletcher spoke,"f was consigned to the care of Henry 
Dundas, who (to do him justice) stayed the plague as 
soon as he was able. Scotland was not cursed by a 
bench of Bishops ; had she at this period like Ireland to 
endure the guardianship of twenty-two mitred shepherds,, 
intent on nothing but the fleece, her case would have 
been hopeless ; but Knox and Melville had scared the 
vultures from their prey, and expelled the obscene birds 
from their ancient haunts. 

* In some counties the number of voters did not exceed nine : in 
Edinburgh the voters were under thirty. For many years the only 
Whig members were Lord Archibald Hamilton and Mr. Maule (now 
Lord Panmure.) Lord Lauderda,le was the only Whig of the sixteen 
representative peers. 

f Henry Grattan. 



( »1. ) 




CHAPTER XV. 

The war raged with unexampled fury ; all fiurope 
was subsidized by Great Britain, and all Europe, except 
Great Britain, was conquered or influenced by France. 
Coalition succeeded Coalition, only to incur disgrace 
and defeat. Our allies subdued, ancient kingdoms anni- 
hilated, republicanism triumphant, Italy annexed to 
France, the German empire dismembered, a British 
army for the first time shamefully defeated ; no country, 
no capital, no city, no hamlet, no department, no field, 
nay not an acre in Europe that did not witness the guilt 
and incapacity of our Government. In India and 
Egypt we gathered laurels ; the master-mind of Welles- 
ley organized victories second only to those of Clive. 
The gallant Abercrombie by one decisive battle, rescued 
Egypt from the triumphant French ; a victory cemented, 
alas ! by his own precious blood. 

Amidst this barren waste the eye reposes on the en- 
during monument of naval glory— our oasis in the 
desert. That which had been Commenced by Rodney, 
was developed by Duncan, matured by St* Vincent, and 
consummated by Nelson. While hours are numbered, 
and while years shall run the glory of these illustrious 
heroes shall endure — until the stream of time shall cease 
to flow, the impression of these glorious men shall con- 
tinue embalmed in the nation's heart.* 

* Hereafter, when we arrive at the close of the war, we shall at- 
tempt a delineation of the great sailor's character; it does not appear 
to have been as yet accurately estimated — but of this hereafter. 



( 92 ) 

The first administration of Pitt was drawing to a 
close ; it was fated to be notorious if not illustrious. In 
1797 the bank declared its inability to meet its engage- 
ments ; the nation was, in fact, bankrupt* although no 
docket was struck* 

It is now conceded by the greatest admirers, by the 
most devoted disciples of Mr* Pitt, that in consenting to 
" restrain the Bank from paying in specie," he commit 
ted a grievous error. It is certain that he yielded his 
own judgment to that of the Bank directors* but having 
yielded he dictated to his colleagues. As if fraud and 
deception were necessary in all state papers, the title of 
the act to protect the Bank from paying in specie was 
styled " Bank restriction," that is, the Bank Directors 
were restrained from doing what they were unable to 
do, and an Act to coerce them was passed at their own 
request. The Bank Restriction Act was renewed at 
different periods until 1819, when it was repealed; we 
shall consider its effects when we have arrived at that 
period. During the last ten years a most unrelenting 
persecution was waged against all literary men unwil- 
ling to prostitute their talents to the cause of despotism. 
A church and king mob destroyed the house and furni- 
ture of Priestley. Wakefield (after Porson and Parr) 
the greatest classical scholar in England, was persecuted 
to death ; he had dedicated his splendid edition of Lu- 
cretius to Fox ; he breathed forth the accents of liberty 
in the Latin language. This was treason against the 
bench of Bishops. He was marked as a condemned 
deer. Having incautiously published two or three pam- 
phlets, without reflecting on the law of libel, he was 
sentenced to pay a heavy fine, and to suffer a long im- 
prisonment in Dorchester jail: this had the effect of 
consigning him to a premature grave. Porson was al- 
lowed to live and die in narrow circumstances. Parr* 
who could have taught a large majority of the bench of 
Bishops, was indebted for his preferments to his private 



( 93 ) 

friends. Watson was allowed to remain Bishop of 
Llandaff all his life.* 

One more proof of the respect paid to literature by 
George the Third. Dr. Johnson had a pension of three 
hundred pounds a year ; GifFord had a sinecure place 
of eight hundred.f At the commencement of the new 
year (1800,) the King had another attack of insanity, 
which was termed a fever. To the astonishment of all 
England Mr. Pitt resigned. His example was followed 
by his colleagues, and in the course of a month Mr. Ad- 
dington who had been Speaker eleven years was cre- 
ated Prime Minister. On this occasion the Grenville 
party, which had been dormant for many years, again 
sprang into existence. 

* Bishop Watson was the only prelate who ever held the see of 
Llandaff without any other preferment. It does not amount to £1,200 
a year. The present Bishop has the Deanery of St. Paul's, so had his 
predecessor. The Deanery is worth £4,000 a year, and is distant two 
hundred and sixty miles from Llandaff. 

t Author of the Baviad and Maeviad ; many years editor of the 
Quarterly Review. 



( 94 ) 



CHAPTER XVI. 



ADDINGTON MINISTRY — LORD REDESDALE. 

The Addington administration was not formed on 
any fixed principles ; it was not necessary to settle what 
question should be open, because there was no one ques- 
tion on which all the members of the Cabinet agreed. 
The administration represented a greater variety of 
opinion than any which the country had seen for fifty 
years ; # the Duke of Portland and Lord St. Vincent 
were Whigs ; Lord Eldon an ultra Tory, Lord Hawkes- 
bury, Lord Pelham, and Lord Hobart moderate Tories; 
the Premier himself any thing or every thing. It may 
be here observed that all the members of the Cabinet, 
except the Chancellor and the first Lord of theiVdmiralty, 

* The Addington administration was thus composed : — 
First Lord of the Treasury ) *«■ .,,. . 

Chancellor of the Exchequer \ Mr ' Addin S ton - 
Lord Chancellor — Lord Eldon. 
President of Council — Duke of Portland. 
Privy Seal — Earl of Westmoreland. 
Secretary of State, Home department — Lord Pelham. 

— — — Foreign — Lord Hawkesbury. 

Colonies — Lord Hobart. 

First Lord of the Admiralty — Earl of St. Vincent. 
Master General of the Ordnance — Earl of Chatham. 
India Board — Lord Lewisham. 

IRELAND. 

Lord Lieutenant — Earl of Hardwicke. 
Chancellor — Lord Redesdale. 
Chief Secretary— Mr. Wickham. 



( 95 ) 

were, as to talents and wisdom, below mediocrity. Mr. 
Addington, who had filled the speaker's chair with 
great credit to himself for eleven years, was appointed 
Minister, because no one else could be found to conduct 
the government. Pitt resigned on the ground of the 
King refusing to concede Catholic emancipation; he 
was also reluctant to conclude peace with the French 
republic, but he knew that England could not continue 
the war, in consequence of the deranged state of her 
finances ; and every ally had been beaten to the earth. 
Lord Grenville and Mr. Wyndham would have been 
perfectly willing to carry on the war, and they could 
have formed an able administration, but they would not 
consent to delay the promised concessions to the 
Catholics, or to continue the slave trade. Peace was 
necessary, slavery desirable, intolerance at this time was 
popular, therefore Addington became premier : he yet 
lives in the enjoyment of a green old age, let us hope 
he will leave behind him an account of his own times, — 
it would be an instructive performance. 

Sir John Mitford, the Attorney General, succeeded 
Mr. Addington as speaker. He held the office little 
more than a year, as on the death of Lord Clare he 
was appointed Chancellor of Ireland and raised to the 
Peerage ; as his political career terminated in 1806 on 
the accession of the Whig ministry, we may now with 
propriety consider the attainments of this very curious 
legal specimen. 

John Mitford was called to the bar not very early in 
life, and having risen into considerable practice at the 
Chancery bar, was appointed Solicitor General (in 
1793,) simply because the Minister did not know whom 
else to appoint. He became six years later Attorney 
General, Speaker of the House of Commons in 1801, 
and finally Chancellor of Ireland. Like Lord Kenyon, 
he was utterly ignorant of every subject except law ; 
but as a mere lawyer, he was highly eminent. There 
the resemblance ended, for he was a great preten- 



( 96 ) 

der to a variety of knowledge, scientific, classical, 
agricultural, architectural. Yet out of his profession 
he was scandalously ignorant, he knew nothing of Ba- 
con except that he had been Chancellor of England, 
and he had never read any of his works except his legal 
treatises. He generally called this great man Viscount 
St. Alban. Congreve the dramatic author he had a 
great respect for, as having been an industrious com- 
missioner of hackney coaches. 

His prolixity as an advocate was frightful, as a judge 
interminable, in private he was garrulity itself. While 
Speaker of the House of Commons he seized every op- 
portunity of talking, and by his never-ceasing clatter 
greatly added to the fatigues of the House. As a Judge 
he had great excellences ; the only drawback was the 
never-failing garrulity, which caused a great arrear of 
causes. He, however, compensated for this by de- 
livering his judgment in a reasonable time after the 
hearing of each cause. On his dismissal from office, 
although there was a heavy arrear of causes, there was 
none of judgments. He was extremely patient, and 
well tempered, and was certainly a good natured and 
an honest man ; but his inordinate love of talking, and 
writing letters, constantly brought him into difficulties. 
Shortly after the Irish insurrection of 1803, which was 
quickly suppressed, the Earl of Fingall, who was the 
acknowledged head of the Irish Catholics, applied to 
the Chancellor to have his name inserted in the Com- 
mission of the peace for the County of Louth ; he had 
been previously a magistrate for the County of Meath. 
Lord Redesdale granted his request, and in the letter 
he wrote on that occasion, after complimenting Lord 
Fingall on his loyalty and conduct as a magistrate, pro- 
ceeded to draw a contrast between his character and 
that of the Catholic gentry in Ireland. Lord Fingall 
replied, and the correspondence extended through seve- 
ral letters ; it was conducted with great good temper 
on both sides, but with eminent absurdity on the part 



( 9? ) 

of the Chancellor ; the result was that the correspon- 
dence was published, and Lord Redesdale became the 
laughing-stock of all Ireland; the government was 
made ridiculous, and consequently was damaged. 
There is no question that if Mr. Pitt had lived he would 
have dismissed the entire Irish administration, it was 
incompetent, ridiculous, pernicious, and extravagant. 
At length it was brought to a conclusion by his death, 
and Lord Redesdale was dismissed within four and 
twenty hours of Fox's appointment to office. He did 
not affect to conceal his reluctance at leaving Ireland, 
and took leave of the bar in an address which did cre- 
dit to his feelings ; he declared that he had hoped to have 
spent the remainder of his life in Ireland. He had 
certainly proved the sincerity of this declaration by 
having purchased a villa in the vicinity of Dublin at an 
enormous expense, and made large additions to an al- 
ready over-sized house, in defiance of every rule of ar- 
chitecture, it was in fact a series of lobbies and closets. 
To this villa he added a farm, and displayed his know- 
ledge of farming, by sending his sheep every day to 
the river. In fact out of his profession he was always 
ridiculous, nay, on subjects connected with it he was 
frequently absurd, constantly cutting jokes on assump- 
sit, and disposed to be very waggish on demurrers. His 
treatise on pleadings in equity is a most excellent work, 
and proves his abilities when confined within their 
proper sphere. To conclude, as an equity judge he 
was great, as a Chancellor ridiculous, as a politician 
pitiable, in equity jurisprudence a Hercules, in every 
other department Hercules at the distaff'. 

9* 



( m ) 



CHAPTER XVII. 



LORD COLCHESTER. 



It would be difficult to imagine a greater contrast to 
Lord Redesdale than his successor, in the Speaker's 
chair. Charles Abbott was educated at Oxford, where 
he had been greatly distinguished ; he was called to the 
bar, but not finding employment he accepted the clerk- 
ship of the rules in the Court of King's Bench. So ac- 
complished a clerk Westminster Hall had never beheld. 
He had filled the office of Chief Secretary for Ireland, 
a short period previous to his being elected Speaker. It 
is as such we have to consider him ; he was perhaps the 
ablest President of the House of Commons that England 
ever saw. To a considerable knowledge of law, he 
joined a thorough acquaintance with the forms and 
practice of the House ; an eloquence though not of the 
highest order yet classical, and chaste. He was per- 
haps at times too magniloquent, and when he intended 
to be very impressive was apt to be pompous or pe- 
dantic, his voice was full, clear, and articulate: the only 
drawback on his performance (for he was a great ac- 
tor) was his figure, which was small and mean. 

He seldom spoke in committee, but when he did he 
produced considerable effect. On one subject alone he 
was illiberal, namely religious toleration ; he was a stre- 
nuous opponent of Catholic emancipation, and repeal of 
the test acts. On the former question he made the ablest 



( 99 ) 

speeches ever delivered against the measure ; on one oc- 
casion he forgot himself, so far as to deliver a tirade 
against the Catholics in his address to the Prince Re- 
gent at the close of the session. This was a great inad- 
vertence; and the next session an inculpatory motion 
was brought forward by Lord Morpeth,* sustained by 
a speech of sound sense and modest talent, which was 
supported by Mr. Plunket with a vigour, a freshness of 
eloquence, a glowing indignation, a force of withering 
invective, which his victim was not likely soon to forget. 
The best speech made in the Speaker's defence was by 
himself, but it was unsatisfactory to every one except a 
large majority of the most profligate assembly that had 
ever met in St. Stephen's.f 

In one respect Abbott was censurable, he infused an 
air of insincerity and mystification into the debates of 
the House; for example, a member having quoted the 
report of a speech in the House of Commons from a 
newspaper, the Speaker called him to order, and with 
justice; but waxing warm, he declared that " no person 
would dare to report the proceedings of the House of 
Commons, it was a gross breach of privilege." On a 
motion made by Mr. Maddocks to inquire into the con- 
duct of Lord Castlereagh as to the purchase of a seat in 
the House of Commons, Mr. Ponsonby with indiscreet 
candour declared that " such practices were notorious, as 
the sun at noon day." The Speaker, with all the gravity 
of an abbess, said that such a declaration would have 
made the " hair of our ancestors stand on end." On 
another occasion his love of order and decorum mani- 
fested itself in a ludicrous manner; Earl Percy had to 
present a report and ask for leave to lay it on the table, 
he appeared at the bar of the House, and was accord- 
ingly asked by the Speaker, " What have you there, 
Earl Percy ? The noble Lord, through inadvertence, 



* The present Earl of Carlisle, 
t The Parliament elected in 1812. 



( ioo ) 

advanced towards the table of the House when he was 
startled by a shout of Order, order, from the Speaker ; 
this was twice repeated ; at length a member whispered 
to the dismayed nobleman, that he should not have ad- 
vanced beyond the bar until he had been told by the 
Speaker to bring up the report ; he accordingly returned, 
and was informed by the Speaker with great pomp of 
language that he was very disorderly, and having re- 
lieved himself by this display, sat down rejoicing in his 
own magnificence. 

In returning the thanks of the House to Naval and 
Military Commanders, he appeared to great advantage. 
His addresses to the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lyne- 
doch, Lord Hill, and the other officers who achieved 
victories during the Peninsular war, are most felicitous. 
A certain degree of stateliness and a fulness of declama- 
tion, are not misplaced in describing the pomp and cir- 
cumstance of war. Accordingly the blemishes of Abbott 
became graces when he descanted on military subjects ; 
he evinced, too, a very accurate judgment in those ad- 
dresses, avoiding diffuseness on the one hand, and ob- 
scure brevity on the other, those speeches, like Niobe's 
children, are all beautiful, yet differing in degree and 
style of beauty. 

Facies non omnibus una 

Nee diversa tamen. — Ovidius. 

In one respect, however, the fame of Abbott will en- 
dure — lie possessed a rare impartiality, never evincing" a 
want of firmness or temper. The impeachment of Lord 
Melville was carried by his casting* vote, although he 
knew that the success of that impeachment would destroy 
the administration. Had he been Speaker when Mr. 
Pitt and Mr. Tierney had the altercation, which ended in 
a duel, he would have quelled the dispute at once. Had 
he presided in the first Reformed Parliament, the inde- 
cencies, and vulgarity, which disgraced that assembly 
would have been chastised the very first night. In 1817 



( 101 ) 

he was created a peer, but his health being" indifferent, 
he seldom addressed the House. His fame commenced 
and ended with his Speakership. 

The Addington Ministry lasted nearly three years; 
it was supported by both Fox and Pitt during the greater 
part of its duration, as also by Sheridan and by Tierney, 
who accepted an important office. It was uniformly 
opposed by the Grenville party. At length it was as- 
sailed both by Fox and Pitt ; there was every prospect 
of a coalition between those eminent men ; both pos- 
sessed a readiness to sacrifice all animosities to their 
country's cause, but the King desired neither, and was 
resolutely determined not to have both. It was, how- 
ever, not possible to retain Addington, as war was on 
the eve of being declared, and the finances of the coun- 
try being greatly deranged, it was evident that a mas- 
ter-spirit must weather the storm which was fast ap- 
proaching. The King continued to feel a strong at- 
tachment to his Minister, who possessed a respectable 
majority in the House of Commons, having the benefit 
of the Irish members, seventy of whom were anxious to 
support any Minister. It is true that all the Scotch 
members were in opposition, forty-three being the no- 
minees of Lord Melville, and the remaining two Whigs ; 
but in the Lords he was secure, as the King was willing 
to raise as many of his friends to the peerage as he 
wished. In this august assembly he had also an Irish 
brigade. By the Articles of Union, there were twenty- 
eight representative peers, and four Irish Bishops. It 
was evident that he could not be forced out, as the King 
was willing to dissolve Parliament, if necessary. 

The Monarch, however, was informed by the great 
Tory leaders, that he must dismiss Addington, and re- 
appoint Pitt. He had no alternative, but to send for 
Fox ; this he resolved not to do, and Pitt again became 
Premier. The Grenville party refused office, so did the 
section of the Whigs who had retired with him. The 
Grenville party coalesced with Fox, and the falling vie- 



( 102 ) 

tor resumed his lofty position with diminished forces; 
broken in constitution, damaged in character, his spirits 
exhausted, his powers, moral and physical, lamentably 
impaired. The last period of his life had commenced ; 
it was short but deeply eventful. 



( 103 ) 



CHAPTER XVIII. 



SAMUEL WHITBREAD. 



It has been generally believed, that Pitt intended Ad~ 
dington to be merely a temporary substitute. Whatever 
were his intentions his deputy did not entertain any idea 
of the kind, and most unwillingly retired. The con- 
duct, therefore of Pitt, in accepting office shackled, 
was most inexplicable. In 1801 he resigned, along 
with Lord Grenville, Earl Spencer, and Mr. Dundas, 
because the King refused to emancipate the Irish Cath- 
olics ; yet three years later he resumed office, unaccom- 
panied by any of his former colleagues, except Mr. 
Dundas, and pledged himself to the King to resist any 
concession to the Catholics. His Cabinet was composed 
in a great degree of the members of the Ministry which 
he displaced. The three great events of his last Ad- 
ministration were, the impeachment of Lord Melville, 
the battle of Trafalgar and the Battle of Austrelitz. That 
Lord Melville was guilty of deliberate fraud no one 
at this day believes. That he was guilty of great miscon- 
duct, such as to justify severe censure, and perpetual ex- 
clusion from office, is equally certain. If Cabinet Minis- 
ters are allowed to apply public money to purposes 
other than those for which it has been voted there is an 
end to all Parliamentary control. And if men who re- 
ceive large sums of money for public uses are allowed 
to invest them in private banks, instead of the Bank of 
England, there is no calculating on the mischief which 



( 104 ) 

may arise* There was great exaggeration on the part 
of Lord Melville's accusors ; most shameful palliation on 
the part of the Minister. The resolutions inculpating 
the First Lord of the Admiralty were carried by the 
Speaker's casting voice. An impeachment was voted. 
Pitt felt himself compelled to advise the erasure of his 
friend's name from the list of Privy Councillors. He thus 
lost the only able colleague he possessed. On the question 
as to impeachment, or prosecution by the Attorney 
General, he made his last speech in Parliament. His 
heart was almost broken. He was cheered bv the sur- 
passing glory of Trafalgar ; hut, alas, stunned to the 
earth by the fatal day of Austr^lits two months later. 
He never appeared in the House of Commons again. 

The principal manager of the impeachment of Lord 
Melville was Samuel Whitbread. He had sat in the 
House of Commons for several years, and had always 
held an honourable, but until this period, not an eminent 
station. He however during the impeachment, and pre- 
vious debates, displayed powers of a very high order ; 
and as in a very tew years Fox and Wyndham died, 
and Grey and Erskine succeeded to the Peerage, he 
ranked in the very first class of debaters on the side of 
the Whigs. There was the same manly energy in his 
speeches, which distinguished Fox, and the same sim- 
plicity ; but there was a constant approach to coarse- 
ness, or we should rather say homeliness, of expression. 
There was a sturdiness both in his manner and language, 
and an honesty which beamed in every feature, and 
breathed in every word that was irresistible. The 
cordiality of manner, the sincerity, the earnestness, the 
candour, of this admirable person, enlisted the feelings 
of the audience in his favour at the very outset of his 
course. His speeches were eminently English, free 
from the ill regulated flights of the Irish, or the misty 
metaphysics of the Scotch. Indeed he used to feel 
somewhat indignant at the brilliant, although somewhat 
eccentric, corruscations of Canning ; and if he detected 



( 105 ) 

a broken metaphor, would not fail to hold the orator up 
to ridicule. He did not much relish the metaphysical 
dissertations of Sir James Mackintosh, although he 
rendered full justice to his great and varied talents. 
Whitbread really viewed metaphors and ornate speak- 
ing, nice distinctions, or wire-drawn subtleties, as so 
many indications of insincerity. He would have been 
a great lawyer, if he could have restrained his indig- 
nation at special pleading or demurrers. 

During the proceedings against the Duke of York in 
1809, as well as the impeachment of Lord Melville, he 
proved himself to have been a powerful advocate. His 
speeches to evidence were most masterly, yet perfectly 
free from the acrimony of a partisan. Perhaps he stated 
the case somewhat too strongly against Lord Melville; 
yet we must allow for his honest indignation against 
conduct at the least most culpable. We must consider 
too the over-charged statements of those who supplied 
the materials for the inquiry. He was, perhaps, the 
most independent man in the House of Commons. He 
did not follow any leader implicitly, nor had he any 
followers. He was in fact an auxiliary of the Whigs, 
rather than a member of the Whig party ; but although 
not a party man, he never damaged the party with 
which he voted, by creating a division in its ranks. He 
never proposed wild impracticable schemes, nor ad- 
vanced insane doctrines for the purpose of catching a 
fleeting popularity. Accordingly, there was no man 
who commanded more respect, although many had a 
larger share of popular applause. He was far from be- 
ing suspicious; yet he had great sagacity in penetrating 
the characters of men. He was the first to detect the 
political aberrations of Sheridan, and may be said to 
have terminated the political career of that ill starred 
genius by his speech on the negotiations in 1812, for 
the formation of a new Ministry. Of Sir Francis Burdett 
he always entertained an unfavourable opinion, at the 
time when he was the most popular man in England. 
10 






( 106 ) 

The characteristics of Whitbread were, strong sense, 
great energy, a directness of purpose, language not per- 
haps sufficiently classical, but quite free from vulgarity 
or inaccuracy ; his figure was above the middle height, 
and was strong, manly, and well knit together ; his voice 
was strong and clear, but he spoke with such extraordi- 
nary rapidity that it was not always easy to follow him. 
It is melancholy to add, that his nervous system having 
been seriously deranged for a brief period, in a fit of de- 
lirium, he put an end to his existence. There never 
was a more decided case of insanity ; he had every in- 
ducement to live, but the symptoms of derangement 
came on so suddenly and with such violence, that no 
blame could attach to his family or household of want of 
due precaution. 

Parliament was prorogued in June. The situation 
of Pitt was such as to extort pity from his bitterest ene- 
my. He had not resumed office eighteen months when 
Napoleon was elected emperor of the French ; an im- 
mense army was encamped on the Heights of Boulogne 
avowedly for the invasion of England ; the French 
were in possession of a magnificent fleet, the Bank re- 
striction continued, Ireland had again broken out into 
rebellion, and there is but little doubt that a French party 
existed in that ill-governed country : add to all this Lord 
Melville's disgrace, and the restrictions imposed on him 
by the King. That nothing should be wanting to his 
humiliation, George the Third pursued the same conduct 
to him, as to the Archbishoprick of Canterbury, which he 
did towards Fox in 1784. Dr. Moore died in 1805, the 
King issued a conge d'elire to the Dean and Chapter for 
the election of Dr. Manners Sutton, then Bishop of Nor- 
wich ; this he did, not only without consulting his Prime 
Minister, but contrary to his known intention, which 
was to appoint his intimate friend Dr. Tomline, then 
Bishop of Lincoln. The outrage on Pitt's feelings was 
the greater, because Dr. Tomline was distinguished both 
as a scholar and divine; his " Refutation of Calvanism" 



( 107 ) ' 

is a most able as well as a most useful performance. 
Dr. Manners Sutton, in point of talents and knowledge, 
was beneath contempt. At another time Pitt would 
have resigned instantly, but he had lost every thing, even 
his hardihood. The dying lion, however, was fated to 
feel the ass's kick. — Lord Sidmouth thought fit to act 
the part of Cato, and retired avowedly because Lord 
Melville had not been dismissed sooner ; the real reason 
was because Lord Buckinghamshire had not been ap- 
pointed First Lord of the Admiralty instead of Lord 
Barham, a distinguished naval officer. 



( 108 ) 



CHAPTER XIX. 



LORD NELSON. 



That Napoleon did really meditate the invasion of 
England is now almost certain. He himself declared in 
conversation more than once what his plan had been. 
It was magnificent and feasible, had he not to encounter 
a genius equal to his own. But while Nelson com- 
manded, and the sea rolled in the British Channel, an 
invasion was hopeless, unless purchased by the destruc- 
tion of the French fleet, and the ultimate loss of a hundred 
thousand men. 

Napoleon had no hopes of gaining a decisive victory 
by sea ; but he calculated that if he could decoy Nelson 
to the West Indies, that a large army might pass over 
from Boulogne to the English coast, and disembark in 
safety : as in the event of his plan succeeding his avail- 
able ships in the Channel would greatly outnumber 
those of Great Britain. Villeneuve, in obedience to his 
orders, sailed for the West Indies, and was pursued by 
Nelson. Were it not for false intelligence the French 
fleet would have been encountered by the British aud 
captured. The Spanish fleet, which was unbroken, and 
had remained in the Mediterranean, would have been 
available to cover the projected invasion. The French 
commander escaped and returned to Europe : Nelson 
penetrated the scheme and pursued him. In the mean 
time Austria declared war against France, the French 



( 109 ) 

camp at Boulogne broke up, the combined French and 
Spanish fleet, on the 21st October 1805, ventured to 
give battle. The contest was never doubtful : in a few 
hours the greatest naval victory on record was gained, 
France and Spain ceased to exist as maritime Powers, 
Great Britain was saved, but Nelson fell. Disputes will 
arise, and difference of opinion may exist as to the rela- 
tive greatness of military men. Hannibal, Julius Cae- 
sar, Marlborough, Frederick of Prussia, Napoleon, 
Wellington — all have had their idolaters. Volumes 
have been written with the view to unduly exalt or un- 
fairly depreciate each of those illustrious captains, but as 
to Nelson there cannot be more than one opinion. He 
was himself alone ; among a race of naval heroes he 
stood out in bold prominence, original, undaunted, almost 
inspired ; he not only gained every battle, but had pre- 
viously org-anized every victory : the result of Trafalgar 
was but the fulfilment of a prophecy ; the victory of the 
Nile the consequence of an original hardy manoeuvre, 
which would have been pronounced an impossibility had 
it not succeeded. His calm self-possession at Copenha- 
gen (when amid the dismantling of ships, and the 
slaughter of thousands, he demanded sealing-wax, lest 
if the Crown Prince received a letter sealed with a wa- 
fer he might suspect agitation) throws the anecdote of 
Charles the Twelfth into the shade, for when the Swe- 
dish hero made his reply the danger had passed. 

Nelson was a decided liberal, and has therefore been 
calumniated beyond measure. That his conduct as to 
the execution of Caraccioli was most atrocious, must be 
conceded, if we did not consider that at the time he was 
in a state of delirium, and was grossly deceived. The 
indecorum of his conduct has been also the subject of se- 
vere animadversion. But when we view the entire of 
his character, the rapidity of his career, the brilliancy 
of his victories, and the substantial benefits resulting 



( HO ) 

from them, we must look in vain for any conqueror to 
compare him with, except Napoleon, whom he rivalled 
in his life and surpassed by his death.* 

* It is remarkable that Nelson and Wellington were placed in 
nearly a similar situation, the former at Copenhagen the latter at 
Vimiera. Nelson was second in command ; Sir Hyde Parker who 
commanded in chief, made a signal to retreat, Nelson disobeyed it and 
gained the battle. At Vimiera Sir Harry Burrard superseded Sir 
Arthur Wellesley on the field of battle, and arrested the troops in their 
career of victory. Had Wellington resembled Nelson he would have 
disobeyed. 



( 111 ) 



CHAPTER XX. 



WILLIAM PITT. 



On the 21st January, 1806, Parliament assembled. 
On the 23rd the Premier expired, not having completed 
his forty-seventh year. To this day men are not alto- 
gether agreed as to the principles which he really en- 
tertained ; of the dire calamities resulting from his mea- 
sures there can be but one opinion, among impartial 
inquirers. William Pitt was the second son of the Earl 
of Chatham, in very early life he exhibited considerable 
talents and also great powers of application ; he appears 
to have been the father's favourite child. He entered 
the university of Cambridge when little more than 
fourteen, but his health being delicate, he was unable 
to attend to his terms regularly, but was a resident in 
the University for seven years. This was a rare ad- 
vantage, as thereby he was enabled to acquire a large 
store of knowledge which supplied him for the remain- 
der of his life, as after his accession to power he had 
but few opportunities for study. At the early age of 
twenty-one he was called to the bar, at which he did 
not practice more than two years, as he shortly after 
became Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was Prime 
Minister the subsequent year. His career as a public 
man may be divided into three periods, the first from 
1784, to the declaration of war against France in 1793 : 
during which period he appears only as a peace Minis- 



( 112 ) 

ter. The second from 1793 to 1801, during which he 
was a war Minister; and the last from 1803 to his 
death. The first period is that in which he appears to 
the greatest advantage ; the country had just concluded 
a most disastrous and disgraceful war ; and the finan- 
ces were dilapidated ; public credit shaken ; and Ire- 
land independent, yet dissatisfied. (It is perfectly idle 
to style the crisis of 1782 as any thing but a revolu- 
t tion.) Had he at this first period of his career, intro- 
V duced a bill for Parliamentary reform in earnest, and 
on its success, effected a Union between Great Britain 
and Ireland, then would he have been a benefactor to 
both countries ; but it was not until the Regency ques- 
tion was carried against him in 1787, in the Irish par- 
liament, that he became convinced of the absolute 
necessity of a Union between Great Britain and Ireland. 
Had he proposed that measure in 1784 he must have 
been successful, and he would then have proceeded a 
great way in Parliamentary reform, by adding one 
hundred members, freely elected to the House of Com- 
mons, and if a sound system of representation had been 
established in Scotland, reform in England must of 
necessity have followed. It is utterly impossible, there- 
fore, to avoid one or other conclusion ; that he was in- 
sincere in supporting Parliamentary reform, or that he 
preferred his office to his principles. His conduct as to 
the Slave trade is still more extraordinary, as the King 
was not hostile to emancipation, but the mercantile in- 
terest was; and it was to the merchants he had to 
trust to combat the landed interest. 

He professed great desire for retrenchment; he was 
greatly applauded, and with justice for conferring the 
office of Clerk of the Pells on Colonel Barre instead of 
taking it himself, by which a pension of some thousands 
was saved to the public ; but would it not have been 
better to have abolished the sinecure, which continued 
for more than thirty years longer? Catholic emanci- 
pation he always professed to support, yet to the Eng- 



( H3 ) 

lish Catholics he never made the slightest concession ; 
and the Irish emancipation bill he sacrificed to the King ; 
in fine, his maxim appears to have been to postpone 
every thing. His system of taxation during peace was 
certainly excellent ; it was not oppressive and it was 
efficacious, but the sinking fund is now admitted to have 
been the greatest delusion ever practised on a country. 
Lord Thurlow denounced it in 1792; many years after 
Lord Grenville proved it to have been fallacious. His 
second great financial measure, was the Bank restric- 
tion bill, in 1797, which is now acknowledged to have 
been an appalling blunder. Even Mr. Canning his 
friend, his pupil, his partisan, his idolater, admitted that 
on this one occasion the Oracle spoke false. The Re- 
gency question is the only one upon which he appears 
to have acted consistently throughout, the principles he 
established were clear, explicit, intelligible, and rather 
democratic. 

During the second period of his career, he is to be 
considered as a war Minister, in this capacity he comes 
into immediate comparison with his father. That Pitt 
was most reluctant to enter upon the war is now cer- 
tain ; there is little doubt that it was undertaken con- 
trary to his conviction, but it must be admitted that the 
war was conducted with extreme incapacity ; our ar- 
mies were uniformly unsuccessful in Europe, expedi- 
tions ill arranged, useless conquests of sugar islands, a 
rich harvest of infamy and disgrace. At the same time 
every power in Europe was subsidized ; the most enor- 
mous expenditure was incurred ; the national debt was 
trebled ; every ally was beaten to the earth ; and at the 
close of the war, which lasted eight years, France who 
was bankrupt in 1792, rose in glory and prosperity, 
her capital enriched by the spoils of Italy, tithes abo- 
lished, and episcopacy extinguished. No object was 
attained for which England fought ; every thing was 
lost except honour, that was saved by St. Vincent, 
Duncan, and Nelson. At length, after a war more 






( 114 ) 

disastrous than that waged with America, a peace more 
ignominious than the treaty of 1783 was concluded. 
During the last period of Pitt's career he appears to 
have been altogether an altered man, combating through 
despair and almost without hope. The impeachment of 
Lord Melville, the celebrated loan of Boyd and Ben- 
field, broke his heart. How is this statesman to be es- 
timated ? how pass judgment on him with impartiality ? 
At this day we suffer from his government ; yet to this 
hour many consider him as the saviour of his country . 
with such men success is no criterion of merit, for Pitt 
almost uniformly failed. As a financier he only appears 
to advantag-e from 1783 until the French war; he cer- 
tainly during that period restored credit and gave an im- 
pulse to national industry ; yet that time was distin- 
guished by the sinking fund, which enabled the Minis- 
ter to borrow any sum he pleased. From the effects of 
the Bank restriction we suffer still, the displacement of 
capital caused by that measure has been immense — if 
we compare the state of finance at the close of the Ame- 
rican war, with that at the peace of Amiens, Lord 
North appears to great advantage, when compared with 
Pitt. 

Reckless as was the expenditure during the American 
war, that during the crusade against France was still 
more so. Lord North ran no risk of bankruptcy, Eng*- 
land was within five days of barter, under Pitt's admini- 
stration. In respect to retrenchment how did Pitt act ? 
He allowed every sinecure to continue, and not only filled 
up every vacancy which occurred, but granted offices in 
reversion, sometimes for three lives. In one department 
alone (the Exchequer) there were in existence at his 
death three tellerships, the salaries and fees of which 
amounted to seventy thousands pounds a year. In what, 
then, did Pitt's greatness consist? In his oratory; here 
he was unrivalled except by Fox. 

His style was evidently formed on that of Boling- 
broke, of whose political writings he was a great ad- 



( US ) 

mirer; this admiration he shared with Lord Chatham, 
who in his letter to his nephew exhorts him to read, 
"over and over again, the letters on the History of Eng- 
land, on account of the inimitable beauties of style." 
There is in Pitt's speeches the same clear uninterrupted 
flow of language, which we find in St. John ; they also 
resemble each other in the felicitous choice of words ; the 
admirable structure of sentences, the harmonious cadences, 
the skilful balance of periods. Pitt, however, was alto- 
gether free from the grammatical faults which we find in 
St. John, even when most heated he never violated the 
rules of grammar. Were we to seek for blemishes in 
Pitt's oratory, we should say that there was too great a 
uniformity of style ; his sentences were always long, and 
invariably stately. Now as comedy should sometimes 
elevate its voice and tone, so on the other hand tragedy 
should occasionally unbend and border on the familiar. 
Pitt never unbent, seldom relaxed, he had but little wit, 
and no humour; his powers of sarcasm were great, but 
always of the most virulent description, often resembling 
Juvenal, never approaching Horace. His invective was 
terrific, he even surpassed his father in the use of that 
formidable weapon ; the invective of the elder Pitt, how- 
ever, was produced by fervid indignation at the baseness 
and corruption of his opponents ; that of the younger re- 
sulted from rage at his supremacy being questioned; 
never was there a more arrogant or audacious man. 
The success of his extraordinary Parliamentary cam- 
paign in 1785, when he maintained himself against a 
Parliamentary phalanx, unequalled before or since, and 
unaided by any colleague except Dundas, may account 
for his uniform haughtiness. His delivery partook of 
this defect; his voice, clear, harmonious, yet extremely 
loud; his gestures frequently violent, were at times un- 
graceful, and often menacing; he seldom condescended 
to reason, but declaimed or had recourse to sarcasm and 
invective. He never attempted to prove himself in the 
right, but tried to demonstrate that his adversary was in 



( 116 ) 

the wrong; if he failed in this he had recourse to the 
only argument now used in the House of Commons, the 
"tu quoque." He was never prolix, but often diffuse; 
he was perhaps the greatest master of synonymes that 
f ever lived, he generally stated every proposition three 
| times. An auditor would consider the first statement as 
! clothed in the most beautiful language possible, were it 
| not equalled by the second and surpassed by the third. 
I His great excellence as a debater consisted in a remark- 
I able quickness, in seizing the weak point of his adver- 
sary's argument, which he never relinquished until he 
had placed him in a false position. A striking example 
of this occurs in the debates on the King's illness, when 
the opposition put forward the claim of the Prince of 
Wales to the Regency as an absolute right. This indis- 
cretion he instantly availed himself of, and by it was 
enabled to protract the discussion until the King reco- 
vered. He had, during his latter years, fallen into a 
habit of repeating the same phrases night after night; 
he never spoke on the war with France without declaring 
that his object "was indemnity for the past, and security 
for the future;" whenever he mentioned Napoleon it was 
as "the child and champion of jacobinism; these two 
sentences recurred as regularly as the theme of a rondo, 
and always drew down boisterous cheering from the de- 
graded majority of the House. 

It is to be remarked that Pitt never coined words, he 
sometimes introduced new combinations of phrases, but 
never new words. The language which served Milton, 
Dryden, Addison, Bolingbroke and Chatham, was suffi- 
cient for the expression of his ideas. In the choice of his 
epithets he was as judicious as Virgil ; but his sentences 
were frequently too much involved. He was partial to 
a parenthesis, and not unfrequently three or four occurred 
in one sentence ; to transposition he was as strongly ad- 
dicted as Cicero, whom in the exquisite structure of his 
sentences he greatly resembled. In the allocation of his 
words he was extremely happy, every word was exactly 



( 117 ) 

in the position it ought to occupy, and were an alteration 
made some beauty would have been lost. With all his 
rare endowments, it is doubtful if he ever gained a soli- 
tary vote by his eloquence ; the truth is, you cannot con- 
vince others unless you are convinced yourself, or at least 
appear to be in earnest. Now there was an air of insin- 
cerity in Pitt which breathed through all his speeches, 
and manifested itself in his political conduct; he pro- 
fessed to support Catholic Emancipation, Parliamentary 
Reform, Abolition of the Slave Trade, yet he postponed 
all three, and finally cushioned those important questions. 
He was the first Minister who allowed "open ques- 
tions ;" he also permitted the King" to prohibit the intro- 
duction in the Cabinet of particular measures. 

It has been the fashion with Mr. Pitt's disciples to 
protest against innovation, this has been their cry in 
war and in peace, yet was Pitt the greatest of innovators ; 
the sinking fund suspension of cash payments, the in- 
come tax bear witness to his financial changes. He 
quadrupled the peerage, created a mercantile aristo- 
cracy, altered every law, organized a system of spies 
and carried the legislative union by the most gigantic 
corruption. In addition to these changes a new law of- 
treason was introduced, and his former associates in re- 
form he strenuously laboured to hang. Never did En- 
glish minister hold power so long, never did a states- 
man effect so little for the improvement or happiness 
of his country. To this year his birth-day is comme- 
morated, and speeches are made on his system and his 
principles. Of his system we shall say nothing, we cannot 
speak of it with impartiality ; but what were his princi- 
ples? Let us take the opinion of his friends. Lord El- 
don declared in the House of Lords, that Catholic 
Emancipation, or Parliamentary Reform would com- 
pletely revolutionize the country. Mr, Canning in the 
House of Commons admitted that the Bank Restriction 
Act was an hallucination of the great statesman. Lord 
Grenville in an elaborate treatise declared that the Sink- 
11 



r 




( 118 ) 

jng Fund was a delusion, and Mr. Peel, During the last 
session severely censured the system of open questions, 
particularly as applied to the Slave Trade. Well might 
a disciple of Pitt utter Lord Chatham's Prayer, " God 
protect me from my friends, against my enemies I shall 
defend myself." 



( 119 ) 



CHAPTER XXI. 

LORD GRENVILLE. 

The administration was dissolved in little more than 
a week. The King was forced to send for Fox and a 
new Ministry was formed, consisting of three parties : 
the Whig, the Grenville, and the {Sidmouth. Lord 
Grenville was first Lord of the Treasury, and was nomi- 
nally Premier. Fox was really first Minister, as he had 
the majority of the Cabinet with him.* Lord Sidmouth 
was entrusted with the Privy Seal, and Lord Ellen- 
borough at his desire had a seat in the Cabinet, although 
Chief Justice of the King's Bench. The Grenville party, 

* The Administration was as follows : 

IN THE CABINET. 

Lord Chancellor — Lord Erskine. 

President of the Council — Earl Fitzwilliam. 

Privy Seal — Viscount Sidmouth. 

First Lord of the Treasury — Lord Crenville. 

Secretary, Foreign Affairs — Rt. Hon. C. J. Fox. 

War and Colonies — Rt. Hon. W. Wyndham. 

Home — Earl Spencer. 

First Lord of the Admiralty — Lord Howick. 
Chancellor of the Exchequer — Lord Henry Petty. 
Master-General of the Ordnance — Earl of Moira. 

Lord Ellenborougb. 

President of The India Board — Earl of Minto. 
Secretary of War — General Fitzpatrick. 
Treasurer of the Navy — Rt. Hon. R. B. Sheridan. 
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster — Earl of Derby. 
Attorney-General — Sir Arthur Pigot. 
Solicitor General — Sir Samuel Romilly. 



( 120 ) 

which was formed into a separate phalanx in 1801, con- 
tinued to exist until the close of 1830, when one part 
joined Lord Grey, the other merged in the Tories. It 
may not be here out of place, to consider the character 
of Lord Grenville. 

William Wyndham Grenville was the third son of 
George Grenville, to whom we are indebted for the loss 
of America. He was, like his relation William Pitt, 
educated for the bar, at which, however, he did not 
practise as he was appointed secretary for Ireland in 
1785. On the accession of Pitt to power, in 1789, he 
was elected speaker of the House of Commons ; in 1790, 
Secretary for the Home department ; and little more 
than a year after Secretary for Foreign Affairs, which 
he held until 1801. He had great merits and great de- 
fects ; among the former was his consistency, among 
the latter was a stern haughtiness which never forsook 
him. Accordingly he was the most unpopular man in 
England, hated by the people and abhorred by the King. 
By both George the Third and George the Fourth he 
was cordially detested ; a decided proof that he must 
have possessed very extraordinary merit.* In one re- 
spect he was differently circumstanced from either Pitt 
or Fox, the former of whom was in office during the 
greater part of his career ; the latter in opposition during 
the entire of his parliamentary life with the exception of 
two years. Lord Grenville on the other hand was six- 
teen years in office, and twenty in opposition. Having 
sat in the Cabinet with all the eminent men of his time, 
he acquired in consequence a knowledge of the charac- 
ter, talent, and attainments of his opponents and col- 

* When George the Third became nearly blind he said, "I shall at 
least have one consolation — I can no longer see Lord Grenville." As 
a proof of his haughtiness; on one occasion when dining at Carlton 
House, the Prince, who sat next him, clapped him on the baek and 
pressed him to fill his glass. Lord Grenville gave him a look which 
spoke volumes. The Prince instantly said, " Oh, my Lord, I ask your 
pardon ?" The answer was, " Sir, I am your father's subject." 



( 121 ) 

leagues. In the House of Commons he does not appear 
to have taken a very active part, perhaps unwilling to 
encounter men, who, whatever may be thought of them, 
when compared with Pitt, were certainly greatly his 
superiors. 

In the House of Peers the Minister was without effi- 
cient support, it therefore answered every purpose to 
raise Grenville to the Peerage, which was effected be- 
fore the commencement of the war. To the House of 
Peers he was admirably suited ; his manner stately and 
imposing*, but without the animation of Pitt; his logic 
and reasoning* powers inferior only to those of Fox, were 
enlivened neither by wit, or humour, or sarcasm. His 
speeches were more like the lectures of a professor than 
the orations of a senator, and were evidently delivered 
as if there was to be no appeal from the judgements he 
pronounced. 

The period at which he was called to the House of 
Lords was greatly in his favour. Lord Mansfield had 
died, Lord Camden was old and feeble ; Lord Shelburne 
was not very healthy, and did not often come forward ; 
Lord Loughborough was recently created Chancellor. 
Thus Lord Thurlow was the only man able to cope with 
him, and his inconsistencies, and ruffianism contrasted so 
strongly with the consistency, and dignified bearing of 
Lord Grenville, that the Ex-chancellor even if he did 
possess a superiority, must have appeared to disadvan- 
tage. Lord Grenville was, like Fox, Pitt, and Wynd- 
ham, an eminent classical scholar. He also was deeply 
read in political economy, and as a financier was cer- 
tainly greatly beyond any man of his time ; he also 
possessed a considerable knowledge of law, and with 
the exception of Lord Camden was the only man in 
either House who could argue a law question as a states- 
man.* 



* Sir Samuel Romilly requested him to take charge of his bill, for 
rendering »eal estates liable to simple contract debts. 

11* 



( 122 ) 

In the introduction of a question, or what lawyers 
would call the statement of a case, he was always power- 
ful, frequently great. His speech on introducing' the 
Catholic question in 1805, is a fine example of dignified 
philosophical eloquence and cogent reasoning ; in reply 
he was not so successful, he wanted quickness and viva- 
city. On one occasion, however, he greatly shone in re- 
ply. On the motion made by Lord Grey in 1814, 
arraigning the treaty which annexed Norway to Sweden, 
Lord Harrowby had the folly to say, "that a little com- 
mon sense was preferable to the indignant declamation 
of the noble Earl." Lord Grenville followed the silly 
Peer, and delivered a rebuke which prevented a repeti- 
tion of such puerilities. 

As a war minister he cannot claim a high place in 
history, he approved of every war undertaken against 
Napoleon, except the Peninsular, which was the cause 
of his downfall. The manner too in which the war was 
conducted in Europe, formed a pitiable contrast to the 
Indian campaigns, which were organized by Cornwallis 
and Wellesley. He was, however, far more consistent 
than Pitt, as he opposed the Peace of Amiens, and con- 
tinued in opposition to the Addington Ministry; he also 
refused to return to office with Pitt, and when in office 
he made every exertion to pass the Emancipation bill, 
which was the cause of his dismissal and exclusion for 
the remainder of his life. The redeeming features of 
his character were his strict honour, his inviolable fide- 
lity ; if he differed from his colleagues when in opposi- 
tion or in the Cabinet he did so openly. On the death 
of Mr. Fox, the old King wished him to break with 
Lord Howick and the old Whigs, he refused sternly 
and conferred the vacant seat in the Cabinet on Lord 
Holland.* 

We have spoken of the Grenville party — it exercised 
great influence, and acted on very peculiar principles. 

* Contrast the conduct of Lord Grenville towards Lord Grey, 
with that of Mr. Canning to Lord Castlereagh. 



( 123 ) 

No party ever adhered so closely to its leader ; the num- 
bers were very small, but the members moved as one 
man. Not the slightest difference of opinion ever pre- 
vailed among" them ; they were all for Catholic emanci- 
pation, and the abolition of the Slave trade. On the 
other hand they appear to have entertained a deadly 
hatred to the Habeas Corpus Act. Again, they ap- 
proved the conduct of the magistrates in the unhappy 
affair of Manchester in 1819, and joined in the perse- 
cution of Queen Caroline in 1820. On her trial Lord 
Grenville made his last speech in Parliament; it was 
the worst he ever delivered, and strongly bore marks of 
insincerity, which however we cannot justly impute to 
him. In the following year the Grenville party joined 
the Liverpool administration, except its leader, who re- 
tired altogether from public life, but extended a con- 
temptuous protection to the government. Had Lord 
Grenville been Prime Minister in an absolute govern- 
ment, he would have been a great benefactor to his coun- 
try, and never would despotism have been more enlight- 
ened, than under his impulsion or coercion ; so had he 
been president of a great republic he would have co- 
erced the mob and advanced rational liberty ; but in a 
mixed government like the British he was utterly un- 
fitted to be Premier, his virtues and his failings were 
both against him. 



( 1^4 ) 



CHAPTER XXII. 



CHARLES JAMES FOX. 



Great expectations were entertained of the new Mi- 
nistry, too great to be realized; but although much was 
attempted, much was achieved. The Slave Trade was 
abolished, Ireland was tranquillized, and had her agri- 
cultural produce admitted to England and Scotland un- 
fettered by duties. The ministerial changes were more 
complete than any which had taken place since 1 784 ; 
but in less than eight months Fox was no more. 

Charles James Fox was, like his great rival \\ illiam 
Pitt, a younger and favourite son ; it is probable that the 
rivalry and enmity which subsisted between Lord Chat- 
ham and Lord Holland, prevented their illustrious sons 
from coalescing. Friendships are seldom hereditary, but 
enmities, like heir looms, descend ; the former are fleet- 
ing, the latter perpetual. It is worthy of remark that 
although Fox was leader of the Opposition in the Com- 
mons, during four years, that Lord Chatham commanded 
the Whig force in the Lords ; these two most illustrious 
men do not appear to have had any intercourse either 
friendly or political ; and Lord Shelburne, who was the 
friend and disciple of Lord Chatham, was the only man 
against whom Fox appears ever to have entertained an 
enmity. 

Between Fox and Pitt there was this striking contrast, 
the one almost all his life in the opposition, the other, in 
office nearly the entire of his career. Both changed 
from the principles with which they originally com- 



( 125 ) 

menced; but there is one great difference in their con- 
duct, Pitt sacrificed every measure, either to George the 
Third, or expediency; Fox yielded no principle what- 
ever; had he lived but two years longer, Catholic eman- 
cipation must have passed ; as it was he abolished the 
Slave Trade in six months after his acceptance of office, 
yet Pitt was more than twenty years vainly advocating 
abolition. Fox has been blamed for accepting office 
without stipulating for Catholic emancipation, but his 
rival accepted office, pledged to postpone it indefinitely. 
It has been observed that on the ministerial side Pitt 
stood alone in his glory he had no equal, no one ap- 
proaching him. Fox, on the other hand, had an array 
of colleagues each in himself a host; and yet among those 
he rose to undisputed pre-eminence. 

The defect of Fox was an extreme reluctance to enter 
upon war ; no matter what provocation was received ; no 
matter how favourable the opportunity. In this he dif- 
fered from Lord Chatham who had an inordinate love of 
warfare ; but although Fox steadfastly opposed the Ameri- 
can war, and aided by the powerful alliance of Burke, 
may be said to have forced the government to conclude it, 
yet he was hostile to the peace of 1783, which was cer- 
tainly ignominious, and ill-advised. In 1806 he evinced 
great sagacity in declaring war against Prussia, by which 
he forced that treacherous power to join the alliance 
against France. 

The two principal features of his political life, which 
have been most severely censured, were the coalition with 
Lord North, and the celebrated India bill ; but if it were 
culpable in Fox to coalesce with Lord North, how are we 
to justify the conduct of Pitt, in coalescing with Lord 
Thurlow, the great mainstay of the American war ? The 
truth is that the contests which raged from 1781 to 1784 
were the struggles of party, not the battles of antago- 
nistic principles. The India bill was a wise and just 
measure upon this ground, that it diminished the power 
of the Crown, which at this period was immense. When 



( 126 ) 

we consider that all the measures of Pitt, in reference to 
the French war, uniformly failed ; we must admit that 
Fox as a war minister, who uniformly opposed all those 
measures, appears to advantage. It must be considered 
too, that Lord Grenville, who was Foreign Secretary 
during he entire of the first revolutionary war, refused 
office in 1804 without Fox. So here is the testimony of 
an impartial witness to his transcendent ability. As to 
domestic polity, all the measures of Pitt were either post- 
poned or failed, except the Legislative Union with Ire- 
land. On the other hand all the great reforms which 
Fox advocated have been since carried into effect; Aboli- 
tion of Slave Trade, Catholic Emancipation, Parliamen- 
tary Reform, Repeal of the Corporation and Test Acts. 

As an orator and debater, Fox must claim the very 
highest place; he has often been compared with De- 
mosthenes, who, by universal consent is admitted to 
have been the greatest orator that ever lived. Sir James 
Mackintosh pronounced Fox to have been " the most 
Demosthenean speaker since Demosthenes." We are 
now, however, informed, that nothing can be a greater 
mistake than to suppose that there is any resemblance 
between the Athenian and British orator. That there 
are striking contrasts we must admit, but there are 
strong features of resemblance; the same earnestness 
the same sincerity, the same disdain of useless ornament, 
the same energy, but beyond all the same singleness of 
purpose, all the arguments converging to one point. It 
is in this latter characteristic that they are distinguished 
from all other speakers, ancient or modern. Cicero 
was constantly occupied with himself, and would wan- 
der from the subject to exhibit his felicitous phrases, or 
soothe his audience by melody of language. Pitt trusted 
to recrimination, and often directed his invectives 
against measures of his adversaries previously disposed 
of; but Demosthenes and Fox always adhered to the 
subject of debate, and fully defended and explained their 
own views before they attacked those of their opponents. 









( 127 ) 



It was this close adherence to the subject which was 
the striking features of Fox's speeches, his great strength 
lay in his logic, which was wholly unalloyed by sophis- 
try ; he never eluded the question, never mis-stated or 
warped a fact, but boldly grappled with the strong hold 
of his adversary, and carried his lines by storm. He 
was perhaps the fairest debater that ever appeared in 
either House; he never wasted his fire on minor oppo- 
nents, but attacked the nobler antagonists, and always 
their strongest positions. A striking instance of this ap- 
peared during a debate on the Suspension of the Habeas 
Corpus Act: Pitt had spoken early in the evening, the 
opposition had a great advantage in argument, when 
Sir William Grant gave a sudden turn to the combat, 
by a movement at once hardy and original; " I admit," 
he said, " that this measure is a violation of the consti- 
tution, an abrogation of the rights of Englishmen, a 
restraint on the liberty of the whole community- — but 
justifiable by absolute necessity, by the present state 
of the Empire." Fox saw the effect produced, and in 
his reply applied himself altogether to the speech of Sir 
William Grant; he scarcely noticed the oration of Pitt. 
In the opening of a debate Fox was not so felicitous, as 
in reply. He seldom used preparation, either of lan- 
guage or topics ; his speeches not only were unstudied, 
but his matter was often not arranged. The conse- 
quence was that there were frequent repetitions, and 
carelessness of diction ; but this very neglect of com- 
position added a charm to his eloquence, it infused not 
only heart, but naturalness, and what was better in a 
mixed assembly, variety. The plays of Shakspeare 
would not produce the same magical effects, were the 
scenes all poetry; the admixture of prose by the con- 
trast heightens effect. Thus Pitt declaimed in blank 
verse, poetry of the highest order certainly, but monoto- 
nous. Fox, on the other hand, spoke in simple prose, 
but rose with the subject, and occasionally burst forth 
into the noolest strain of fervid eloquence ; although fa- 



( 128 ) 

miliar in his language and plain, he was like Pitt never 
vulgar. 

Burke and Wyndham sinned deeply in this respect. 
We have already noticed instances in the speeches of 
the former, the latter did not err so often, but his com- 
parison of Mr. Wilberforce with " a butcher running 
about the market with a knife in his mouth, abusing 
the thief who stole it," was, although humorous, vul- 
gar to the last degree. 

The speeches of Fox which have been most admired 
were those on the breaking out of the war in 1803, in 
reply to the speech of Pitt (which was regarded as his 
greatest effort,) and that on the introduction of the 
Catholic question in 1805 ; the latter effort was the more 
extraordinary, as he had previously ascertained the in- 
sincerity of the Prince of Wales on that question. On 
the Russian armament in 1791 he was also very great; 
and proved his superior political sagacity. Had war 
then been declared against Russia, we should have had 
an alliance between that country and France ; the re- 
sult might have been the partition of Europe between 
those two powers. His speeches on the Westminster 
scrutiny exhibit excellencies of a different order ; a 
minute analysis of evidence, and a perspicuous summing 
up of facts, a lively comment on the events of the elec- 
tion, great wit and considerable humour. Wit was 
considered by many as his forte ; it certainly was of 
the highest order, and untinctured by the slightest mix- 
ture of causticity. The benevolence of this great man 
was almost without limits, he truly loved all mankind. 

His humour was also of the purest quality, rich, unc- 
tuous, racy, without any approach to coarseness or 
slang; he did not even disdain at times to use a pun, 
that horror of dull men and impostors. In the pronun- 
ciation of the English language he was perfect ; he was 
after the death of Garrick, perhaps the best model in 
England to follow ; he was in this respect purely Saxon ; 
he not only rejected all words of French, or Latin ori- 



( 129 ) 

gin, where there were Saxon synonyms, but he also 
gave an English pronunciation to foreign words incor- 
porated with our language ; for instance, he was the 
first to give an English sound to the word memoirs. 
He went farther, he pronounced the names of French 
towns in an English mode; in this he was followed by 
Wyndham.* He was not only an excellent classical 
scholar, but well versed in French and Italian literature. 
His letters to Gilbert Wakefield prove an intimate ac- 
quaintance, not only with the beauties, but with the 
minute niceties of Grecian and Roman literature. He 
descants on Greek metres, on Iambics and Trochaics 
with a zeal and a relish not unworthy of Porson or 
Parr. 

It is not a little singular that composition should have 
been to him so laborious; his letter to the electors of 
Westminster is said to have cost him many days la- 
bour ; and his speech in moving for a new writ for 
Bedfordshire, in place of the late Dake of Bedford, is 
by many pronounced to have been his worst, and it is 
certain, that it was the only one which had been entirely 
prepared and elaborated. It may be a bad speech 
from Fox but it would have made the fortune of a less 
distinguished speaker. The truth was that he felt too 
deeply the calamity that the nation had sustained in 
losing the pride and ornament of the British Peerage, 
and the loss which had befallen himself in losing an at- 
tached friend to have been completely master of him- 
self. Others would have given highly wrought phrases 
and studied gestures, he gave tears. 

His history, of which only a fragment was left, has 
been much censured ; it appears to me unjustly. There 
is the same simplicity which marked his speeches, the 
same purity, and often the same strength. For poetry, 
he possessed a refined taste, and could write verses be- 

* For instance, Bordeaux, Boulogne ; he went so far as to pronounce 
Toulon, Toolon ; and Ceylon, Saloon. 

12 



( 130 ) 

yond the average merit of our modern poets. In pri- 
vate life he was most agreeable, witty, convivial, ani- 
mated and simple. He was fond of argument, but 
this propensity in him conveyed instruction, and gave 
no offence ; he had not that insatiate love of disputing 
which often renders barristers the pests of society, nor 
that disposition to metaphysical hair-splitting, which 
marks many Scotchmen of the present day, who in 
other respects are excellent members of society. 

It has been said of late years, that he was ignorant 
of political economy, (he himself said in his playful 
manner, that he never could understand Adam Smith.) 
But let the critical sciolists point out in what respect 
this great man was ignorant, before they presumptu- 
ously deal in arrogant dogmas, and ill-advised assertions. 
In one respect at least he proved his sagacity and 
knowledge, he opposed the Bank restriction act in 1797, 
which was supported, at the time by almost all the 
greaf economists in the country ; let the consequences 
attest who was right. His manner in the House of 
Commons was not happy ; his gestures were violent 
and ungraceful ; his figure, a little above the middle 
size, was unwieldy ; he had great breadth of shoul- 
der, and strength of limb ; his countenance was the 
very type of benevolence ; his voice was very fine 
in the lower notes, in the higher notes shrill, and not 
very articulate. His ideas flowed so fast that he some- 
times wanted words to convey them ; accordingly he 
foamed at the mouth, stamped, screamed, and was al- 
most convulsed. Yet amidst this tempest of rage, this 
torrent of eloquence, a passage of surpassing beauty 
frequently shone forth ; the rainbow, which showed 
that the deluge had subsided. 

But whatever defects may be found in Fox, let us 
not forget that we owe him one debt which can never 
be repaid, the preservation of our liberties. Had he de- 
serted his colours in 1792 with Burke, (and he might 
have dictated his own terms,) we should now have been 



( 131 ) 

groaning under a despotism, either civil or military; 
but, aided by Erskine, he saved the press. His libel 
law remains an imperishable monument of his wisdom 
and virtue, defaced and mutilated by corrupt lawyers, 
but still a monument noble and enduring. From 1790 
until 1801, an unrelenting war was waged against the 
people. When Pitt resumed office he was an altered 
man, and had neither the will nor the power to coerce the 
people as before. Unfortunately, Fox survived him 
only by a few months ; he was unable to terminate the 
war, that angel of peace he had so often invoked to 
visit the earth, called him to a better world, — 

" 'Tis thou must come to me." 

The death of his greatest subject inspired George the 
Third with sorrow. The amiable qualities of the man, 
his lively agreeable manners, so strongly contrasted 
with the arrogant bearing of Pitt, had won upon the 
old King, and there is little doubt that if Fox had been 
spared to his country, George the Third would have 
made no effort to remove him. He was now in the 
hands of Lord Grenville, and Lord Howick, both of 
whom he regarded with the most impartial hatred. 
Failing to seduce Lord Grenville into treachery, he re- 
tired to his wonted privacy to meditate an ambuscade, 
if he could not venture in the open field. He had not 
long to wait; a bill having been introduced by Lord 
Howick, in the House of Commons, to admit of Catho- 
lics holding the rank of Post-Captain or Field-Officer, 
the King raised objections to the bill, before the second 
reading ; although he had consented to its introduction. 
The bill was accordingly postponed. Not satisfied 
with this concession, the monarch demanded a pledge 
in writing that no similar bill should at any time here- 
after be brought forward ; this was refused, and the 
Ministry was dismissed. From this period until Octo- 
ber, 1810, there was an absolute Government in Great 



( 132 ) 

Britain ; in that month the Monarch became deranged 
beyond all hope of recovery. The Tories regained 
office, and held it without interruption for twenty years, 
we shall see with what effect on the country. The 
Whig Ministry, although of only a year's duration, 
was very remarkable in many points of view, much 
was effected in a short period, the foundations of many 
important systems were laid. Slavery was abolished, 
Ireland was tranquillized, and the agricultural produce 
of that country admitted for the first time to the ports 
of Great Britain, free of duty. This measure was the 
first movement towards free trade between Great Bri- 
tain and Ireland, which, incredible as it may appear to 
posterity, was not established until twenty years later. 



( 133 ) 



CHAPTER XXIII. 



IRELAND GEORGE PONSONBY. 



The change of Government in Ireland was greater 
than any which had taken place for fifty years. It had 
not been customary to remove the Chancellor with 
every administration, nor was it a matter of course 
that the Lord Lieutenant should resign with the Pre- 
mier. On this occasion, however, the change was 
complete, the Chancellor was dismissed without cere- 
mony. Lord Hardwicke was replaced as Lord Lieu- 
tenant by the Duke of Bedford, Mr. Ponsonby obtained 
the Great Seal, Mr. William Elliott became chief Se- 
cretary, Sir John Newport Chancellor of the Exche- 
quer; Mr. Curran and Mr. Fletcher were a second time 
named to the offices of Attorney and Solicitor-General ; 
but some difficulties arising as to the appointment of 
the former, and the latter desiring the bench, Mr. 
Curran was appointed Master of the Rolls, Mr. Fletch- 
er a Judge of the Court of Common Pleas; Mr. Grat- 
tan declined office. This may be a proper time to 
review the characters of those distinguished Irishmen. 

George Ponsonby was the second son of Mr. Jotm 
Ponsonby, for many years Speaker of the Irish House 
of Commons ; he was called to the bar at an early age. 
and was also elected a Member of the Irish House of 
Commons. He shortly rose to eminence in both sta- 
tions ; obtaining the rank of King's Counsel in less than 
five vears from the period of his call to the bar. His 

12* 



( 184 ) 

principal business was in Chancery, to which he was 
better suited than the Common Law Courts: in the 
statement of a case he was clear and perspicuous, there 
was a sober gravity and earnestness, yet a gentleness of 
deportment that had great weight with a jury. A 
striking instance of the effect he produced was evinced 
on a trial for Crim. Con. brought by the Rev. Mr. Mas- 
sey against the Marquis of Headfort; the facts were 
clearly proved ; there was no imputation on the husband ; 
in fact the case of the defendant appeared hopeless, 
when Ponsonby rose to state his case : he had not pro- 
ceeded in his speech ten minutes when the Jury were 
altogether on his side, and had not Mr. Curran had the 
reply (which was one of his most brilliant efforts) the 
Jury would have given only nominal damages, as it was 
they gave ten thousand pounds. As a Judge he had 
great merits, admirable temper, exemplary patience, ex- 
treme quickness of apprehension, and great facility of 
despatch. He was Chancellor little more than a year, 
in which time he not only decided an unusual number 
of causes but cleared off a heavy arrear which Lord 
Redesdale had left undecided. On the dismissal of Lord 
Grenville he ceased to be Chancellor, and resumed his 
duties in the House of Commons; on the accession of 
Lord Howick to the Peerage, he was chosen leader of 
the opposition, and continued so until his death. It is 
as a British Senator chiefly we have to consider him; 
few men living recollect him in the Irish Parliament. 
It is not a little singular that although he had resided the 
greater part of his life in Ireland, and had been many 
years a member of the Irish House of Commons, yet 
there was nothing of the Irishman about hirn, either in 
his style, accent, or pronunciation, even his humour was 
entirely English. One of his earliest speeches in the 
British Parliament was on the motion of Mr. Fox in 
1805, on behalf of the Irish Catholics, he replied to Mr. 
Foster, who was by many degrees the ablest Irish Mem- 
ber on the Ministerial side ; and completely extinguished 



( 135 ) 

him. So signal was the defeat, that Mr. Foster did not 
speak again for years except on finance, which as 
Chancellor of the Exchequer for Ireland, was within 
his especial province. Some years afterwards, his re- 
ply to Mr. Wellesley Pole (who gave a long, pompous, 
yet trifling detail of his conduct as Chief Secretary for 
Ireland) was remarkable for sportive sarcasm, and play- 
ful ridicule ; his comparison of the speech of Mr. Pole 
with " the history of the Parish by P. P. Clerk thereof, 
written by himself," produced a most exhilarating effect 
at the expense of the Ex-secretary. On the motion for 
the committal of Sir Francis Burdett to the Tower in 
1810, he differed from his party, and in a speech of ex- 
traordinary power and deep research, vindicated the 
course adopted by the majority of the House. 

The defect of Ponsonby's eloquence was a want of 
fire ; this in a leader of opposition, is a great blemish ; 
had he been leader of the Ministerial side, he would 
have appeared to much greater advantage; his forte lay 
more in defence than attack ; he always gave sound and 
plausible reasons for the conduct of his own party, but 
did not lay bare with sufficient severity the faults of 
his opponents. In reply he always excelled ; he never 
took notes, yet left nothing of moment advanced on the 
opposite side, unanswered. He did not mis-state or per- 
vert the arguments of his opponents, but he had great 
dexterity in placing them in an unfavourable point of 
view. On one occasion Mr. Pitt said, with his usual 
virulence, that "the honourable gentleman possessed no 
talent but that of perverting the arguments of his antago- 
nists." This ebullition of temper only proved the effect 
of the speech thus censured. It must be considered that 
this very able man had one difficulty to encounter, which 
no leader ever had before ; there were two oppositions, 
the Foxites and the Grenvilles; the latter weak in num- 
ber, but strong in talent and influence out of the House. 
The Radical party, too, had recently sprung into ex- 
istence ; and the great triumph obtained at the West- 



( 136 ) 

minster Election, in 1S07, by the return of Sir Francis 
Burdett and Lord Cochrane, gave an influence to this 
new party of which it was utterly undeserving. Thus 
there were three armies to manage, one of which was 
as hostile to the opposition as the Ministry, and, in truth, 
by its insanity and absurdity enabled the Tory Govern- 
ment to retain office for twenty years. In voice and 
manner Mr. Ponsonby had great advantages; his voice, 
without being powerful, was so articulate, yet so clear 
and harmonious, that he filled the House completely, 
and without an effort. His pronunciation (evidently 
formed on that of Fox,) was so excellent and so striking 
(when compared with that^of the other Irish members.) 
that even homely language would have been attractive 
when so enounced. His manner was that of a highly 
educated country gentleman, manly and unaffected ; 
free from the vices of either the stage or the bar. In 
private life he was the very type of amiability. Exem- 
plary in every relation of life, if he had a fault, it was 
an affectation of mystery and reserve, which was some- 
times carried to a ludicrous extreme. This arose from 
witnessing in early life the difficulties which his father 
fell into from too great a facility of promise. He never 
could refuse any request; the consequence was that he 
was utterly unable to fulfil one-half of the promises he 
had made.* Owing to great exertions during the ses- 
sion of 1817, followed by close attention on Committees, 
he was unable to take any exercise, and he had been all 
his life accustomed to a great deal. In the month of 
June, 1817, he was attacked by apoplexy in the House of 
Commons, and expired in less than a week, being little 
more than sixty-one years of age, and of a frame and 
constitution which promised a vigorous old age. Never 
was a man more sincerely regretted : it was only when 



* Mr. John Ponsonby had become so noted for the failing- above- 
mentioned, that he acquired the nick-name of Jack Promise. 



( 137 ) 

he was no more that his merits were duly appreciated. 
The more ardent spirits of the opposition, who com- 
plained of his slowness and caution, were obliged to imi- 
tate those qualities, as more than a year elapsed before 
they elected a successor. 



( 138 ) 



CHAPTER XXIV. 



JOHN PHILIPOT CURRAN. 



John Philipot Curran was one of the most extraor- 
dinary men of his day : few have been more reviled, or 
more admired ; few have committed greater errors, or 
graver faults : no man more nobly redeemed them. As 
a private individual, he was in many respects culpable; 
but as a public man spotless. Without fortune, gentle 
blood, or family connexions; without industry, or strong 
powers of application ; unaided by a patron, unstained 
by servility ; he rose to the very highest eminence in his 
profession, at a period when the Irish bar was thronged 
with eminent men; compared with the bar of the pre- 
sent day, (1840) the difference is that of the golden age 
and the brazen. 

As an advocate he had powers of the highest order; 
he was certainly deficient in close reasoning, but his 
arrangement of facts was so lucid, his powers of ridi- 
culing an adversary so great, that his deficiency in logic 
was not felt. He possessed the faculty in a strong de- 
gree of " laughing a case out of Court." His wit was 
considerable: his humour incomparable; his talents as 
an actor were first rate in either tragedy or comedy. 
His skill in the cross-examination of a witness was ex- 
quisite ; in this very difficult art, he surpassed even Gar- 
row, as he was free from -his vulgarity, and never as- 
sumed the manner of a bully. He did not browbeat or 
insult a witness: on the contrary, he tried to keep him 
in good humour, and quietly coaxed him into contradic- 



( 139 ) 

tions. If the evidence was very strong against him, and 
difficult to be shaken, he raised a loud laugh, either by 
some unexpected joke, or by a mimicry of the style and 
manner of the witness, which he introduced so suddenly 
and so adroitly, that the desired effect was produced 
before the Judge could interfere. 

His eloquence was of the first class, but it was " Irish 
eloquence." He seldom, it is true, fell into the vulgari- 
ty of Burke, or used the broken metaphors of Canning; 
but he had not the erudition of the former, or the classi- 
cal beauty of the latter, (whom in the nature of his ta- 
lents, he resembled more than any other man of his day,) 
His style was partly oriental, partly French, and was 
sometimes trivial, sometimes bombastic. His extreme 
partiality for the writings of Rousseau had an influence 
on his compositions. We find both in Rousseau and in 
Curran, sublimity,* extravagance, and love of parodox; 
an exquisite melody in sentences, a skilful harmony in 
composition; eloquent puerilities, defective reasoning, 
plausible sophistries, morbid vanity: at one time bril- 
liant coruscations of genius, at another the lurid glare 
of a disordered imagination. 

But the criterion of a speech is the effect produced on 
the audience to which it is addressed ; and assuming this 
rule to be correct, never was there a more successful 
orator; he carried away juries, judges, the bar, the au- 
dience, convulsing them with laughter, or drowning them 
in tears, as seemed meet to the great artist. The most 
extraordinary speech which he, or perhaps any other 
advocate ever made, was in a case of a disputed will, 
Newburgh versus Burrowes. The trial occupied eight 
or nine days. The speech of Curran (whose duty it was 
to impugn the will,) consumed six hours; unfortunately 
there is no report of it, but the writer has heard from 
two eminent men who were counsel in the cause, that 

* It is singfilar enough that Sir Samuel Romily should have had 
so enthusiastic an admiration of Rousseau, as appears from his memoirs 
recently published. 



( 140 ) 

that the display of talent of every kind was astonishing ; 
his pathetic description of a dying man anxious to make 
an equitable will, was strongly contrasted with his mi* 
micry of a Galway priest who attended the testator 
during his last illness.* The effect produced by this 
piece of comic acting on the judge who presided, (Lord 
Clonmell,) was very amusing; he did not think it deco- 
rous to laugh much, but having himself a great relish for 
humour, and no inconsiderable talent for mimicry, he was 
placed in a painful position between the restraint he 
imposed on himself, and his propensity to laugh; at 
length he fairly broke out into a convulsion of laughter 
and very nearly fell off the bench. 

The best forensic speeches of Curran are those on the 
trial of Archibald Hamilton Rowan, in Massey v. Head- 
fort, and in Hevey v. Sirr. In the first many noble pas- 
sages occur, and none of those quibbles or ill-timed jests 
which are to be found in many of his other speeches. 
The celebrated passage of the emancipated slave is, 
however, borrowed from Blackstone and Cowper's Task. 
In the second case, which was an action brought by a 
Clergyman against a Nobleman for criminal conver- 
sation with his wife, the speech of Curran was one of 
surpassing beauty ; his description of the elopement, 
which was from church while the plaintiff was offici- 
ating as a clergyman, was at once powerful and pathe- 
tic; "the humble pastor imploring blessings on his 
congregation, even on the hoary monster who was de- 
stroying his happiness forever ;" this and other passages 
in the same elevated tone of morality, delivered with 
the greatest earnestness, and producing the most striking 
effect, would induce a belief that Curran entertained 
sound notions of morality and religion. 

* Part of the priest's evidence ran thus : " Dennis, says I, now that 
you are going to die, it is time to lead a new life. Oh, it would be a 
mighty pretty thing to save your soul from the great enemy." This, 
delivered in a strong Connaught brogue, with a St. Omer's lackering, 
had a most ludicrous effect, and Curran took care when he repeated it, 
that it should lose nothing in the translation. 



( 141 ) 

His best speech, in the opinion of many competent 
judges, was on an appeal to the Privy Council by How- 
ison, a Dublin Alderman, against the appointment of an 
Alderman James to the office of Lord Mayor. His in- 
vective against the Chancellor (Lord Clare,) whose 
character he drew under the name of Sir Constantine 
Phipps,* was in the most finished style of polished^sar- 
casm. Lord Clare perceived the drift of the bitter 
satirist, and interrupted him early in his speech by ask- 
ing him " what the conduct of Sir Constantine Phipps 
had to do with the question before the Council?" Cur- 
ran answered adroitly, and gaining strength by the in- 
terruption, redoubled his blows and soon witnessed the 
unhappy Chancellor writhing in agony. 

An instance has been mentioned of the effect which 
his comic powers produced on a Judge. In his argu- 
ment in the case of the late Judge Johnson, before the 
Barons of the Irish Court of Exchequer, he gave a stri- 
king proof of his power of commanding tears. He had 
been on habits of close intimacy with Lord Avonmore 
(the chief Baron,)which was broken off in consequence 
of a difference in politics ; something occurred which 
induced Curran to allude to their former intimacy, and 
when he described the " Attic Nights" they had passed 
together, Lord Avonmore became painfully affected and 
at length burst into an agony of tears.f 

As a parliamentary debater Curran did not sustain 
his great reputation ; his information was but scanty, 
and having extraordinary facility of eloquence, he did 
not attend sufficiently to the language or style suitable 
to the senate ; his propensity also to pun and quibble 
often manifested itself; he forgot that what was much 

* Sir Constantine Phipps was Lord Chancellor of Ireland for some 
years during the reign of Anne. He was a very liberal, enlightened 
man, and was accordingly as much culumniated as his collateral de- 
scendant, the *Marquess of Normanby, is at the present day. 

t It is pleasing to be able to add, that, on the rising of the k Court, Lord 
Avonmore sent for Curran, and they were cordially reconciled. 
13 



( 142 ) 

too good for a Dublin Jury was quite unfit for the House 
of Commons. One instance of this want of tact may 
suffice. The Attorney General (Fitzgibbon) had taken, 
according to Curran, a very confined view of the; ques- 
tion before the House; the words in which he expressed 
this opinion were, " the right honourable gentleman has 
argued the question * like an Attorney-particular, not as 
an Attorney-general."' His speech, however, on the 
Catholic question in the Irish House of Commons in 
1794, possesses very considerable merit, and in reply 
he was, always most efficient. He must have had great 
powers in this respect, as he provoked the Attorney 
General to send him a challenge.* 

His great deficiency was in knowledge : he was far 
from being a profound lawyer, and was utterly deficient 
in a knowledge of political economy ; he had but a su- 
perficial acquaintance with history : with Greek and 
Roman literature he was familiar: he, however, had 
never read the less familiar classics. With the exception 
of Shakspeare and Milton, he knew but little of early 
English literature. He possessed, like Mirabeau, great 
facility in appropriating to himself the labours of others; 
he did not like the French orator plagiarise by wholesale; 
whatever he borrowed he improved ; but (to use a uni- 
versity phrase) he used to have himself" crammed" by 
skilful men in different branches of knowledge. 

His skill in conversation was so great that he could 
readily extract the information he required ; and in truth 
most of what he knew he acquired by conversation. 
He was well versed in French literature, to which he 
was extremely partial : in the Italian language he was 
not deeply versed. It was as a companion, however, 
that he principally shone : his pre-eminence (in this line) 
was as undoubted as that of Johnson : few men have 
uttered more brilliant sentences, or a greater number of 
witticisms ; he was a first-rate actor, mimick and pun- 

* Mr. Fitzgibbon, afterwards Earl of Clare. 



( 143 ) 

ster ; his transitions from pathos to gaiety, from decla- 
mation to argument were most extraordinary. Sterne 
has been considered a great master of pathos and hu- 
mour, — in one night Curran could exhibit a greater 
range of genius than Sterne displayed in all his works. 

His besetting sin was vanity, which was inordinate. 
Such was his craving for applause, that if he dined in a 
company on which his jokes did not tell, he used to 
show off to the servants, either by mimickry of some 
well known character, or by humorous anecdotes, in 
which he excelled, as well as in the higher regions of 
wit. At one time he would act the Irish priest, during 
the entire dinner, at another some well known ballad 
singer. The effect of these exhibitions may be easily 
imagined. 

His indiscretion. was extraordinary. At the first 
dinner given by Lord Fitzwilliam to the Opposition in 
Dublin Castle, at which most of the Whig leaders were 
present, Curran, to the amazement of the company, re- 
lated the old story from Joe Miller, of the obstinate 
tailor's wife. This anecdote he served up with proper 
variations, changes of voice, and at last in pathetic 
tones. Never, perhaps, was the saying more strongly 
exemplified of " an old friend with a new face," than 
the tailor's wife exhibited on this occasion.* 

Many years afterwards, .when Master of the Rolls, 

* At this dinner were the late Marquess of Landsdowne (then 
Lord Wycombe,) Sir John Parnell, Mr. Grattan, Mr. Ponsonby, Mr. 
George Ponsonby, Mr. Fletcher, and Mr. Bowes Daly. — Some obser- 
vation having been made as to the fortitude of women, Curran said 
that an anecdote he had heard of an humble tradesman's wife had 
greatly affected him, and threw " the heroism of Lucretia and Portia 
into the shade. The wife of a tailor quarrelled with her husband and 
called him • Pricklouse ;' the man struck her. Again and again, she 
repeated the contumelious epithet; at length the husband seized her 
by her clothes and plunged her into the garden well up to the chin, 
still she screamed out 'Pricklouse, Prieklouse ;' the angry tailor 
plunged her deeper, she could no longer speak, bat raising her hands 
above her held she mutely indicated the obnoxious name, by making 
signs of that periodical immolation which careful mothers practise on 
the skulls of their innocent babes," 



( 144 ) 

at a dinner party given by Lord Manners to the Judges, 
some observations having been made as to the charac- 
ter of the Prince Regent, Curran descanted at some 
length on the great talent for mimickry which the Prince 
possessed. 

At his own table he appeared to the greatest advan- 
tage ; there he never engrossed the entire conversation, 
he sedulously drew out each of his guests, and paid the 
most impartial attention to each, without any reference 
to the rank of the party. One peculiarity he had in 
common with Lord Byron, a great love of mystifica- 
tion ; he would sometimes name an extremely dull per- 
son, to whom he attributed the most brilliant wit, and 
declared to his friends that it was astonishing they had 
not discovered the pleasantry of his friend, of whose 
witticisms he quoted several of which he himself was 
the author. As a poet he had no inconsiderable talent; 
his poem called " the plate warmer " possesses all the 
facility and naturalness of Prior without his indeli- 
cacy. 

The career of this extraordinary man virtually closed 
in 1806, on his appointment to the Mastership of the 
Rolls, an office he accepted with extreme reluctance, 
and to which his talents were utterly unsuited. At' the 
general election in 1812 he was invited to stand for 
Newry, and was defeated by a small majority ; at the 
close of the poll he made a speech which proved that 
his eloquence had not died, although for years it had 
slept. His oration exhibited the same brilliancy, wit, 
and flow of language that seven years previously had 
marked his forensic efforts — there were also the same 
blemishes ; he styled the demand of Lord Grey and Lord 
Grenville, of the dismissal of the great officers of the 
Household, as a dispute about "mop sticks and water 
closets." This passage, with some others of the same 
kind, gave great offence to his former friends, and gra- 
tified his enemies.* 

* Shortly before, he had given a grand dinner to the Duke of Rich- 



( 145 ) 

This was his last public effort. In 1814, to the 
great surprise of every one, he resigned his office, 
which he had not held for more than seven years. The 
reason he himself gave was, that he intended to enter 
Parliament, and that he could not discharge the duties 
of both Senator and Judge. He soon repented of his 
resignation ; he did not obtain a seat in the House of 
Commons, and he was unable to find occupation. He 
made an excursion to France in 1814, but found fault 
with every thing ; he was want to descant on the great 
laxity of morals among the French, their want of heart, 
and insincerity. The rest of his life he spent, partly at 
his villa near Dublin, partly in London. In October, 
1817, he was attacked by paralysis, and died at Bromp- 
ton after a short illness. " He was a man more sinned 
against than sinning." 

mond, and a large party of high Tories, with some of whom he had no 
previous acquaintance. This displeased his political friends, and Cur- 
ran, learning this, availed himself of the opportunity at the Newry 
election, to utter political sentiments of ultra Whiggism ; to prove he 
had not ratted, and to show his impartiality, he abused Lord Grey 
and Lord Grenville. 



13* 



( 146 ) 



CHAPTER XXV. 



WILLIAM FLETCHER. 



It would be difficult to imagine a man more unlike 
Curran, in almost every respect, than William Fletcher. 
This eminent man was highly distinguished, not only 
as an Advocate, but as a Senator, and as a Judge. He 
entered the University of Dublin at the early age of 
fourteen, and remained there for the unusually long pe- 
riod of eight years. He was undetermined as to the 
choice of a profession, and actually took out the degree 
of a Bachelor of Medicine. He had passed his exami- 
nations for a Doctor's degree, and had qualified himself 
for the Bachelorship of Divinity, when he was persuaded 
by Curran (with whom he had been very intimate) to 
adopt the profession of the Bar. For more than two 
years he was unnoticed and unknown ; when a prose- 
cution for a libel on Lord Tracton (the Chief Baron of 
the Exchequer) was preferred by the Attorney Gene- 
ral, against Joseph Cavendish, the proprietor of the 
Evening Post. Mr. Fletcher was Counsel for the de- 
fendant, and made a speech which produced an extra- 
ordinary effect, both on the Bar and the Bench. To 
the Judges of the King's Bench, before whom the case 
was tried, it gave great offence.* When the trial had 

* In Ireland, the practice was to try all Crown prosecutions, or in- 
formations, ex-officio, before the full Court. It is to be observed, that 



( 1« ) 

concluded, the Court directed the Crier to call Mr. 
Fletcher: on his appearance, the Chief Justice addressed 
him in a tone of extreme severity, and concluded by- 
telling him, " that he had violated his duty as an advo- 
cate, and as a gentleman : he had probably kept low 
company, but that now he belonged to a profession of 
gentlemen, he must conduct himself as a gentleman. " 
Few men could have withstood a censure like this. 
Mr. Fletcher said, " May I, my Lords, say a few words 
in my own justification?" "Certainly," said the Chief 
Justice; and the Judges folded their arms composedly, 
in the expectation of an abject apology. Never was 
there a greater disappointment ! The young Barrister, 
after justifying the line of defence he had adopted, 
burst forth into a strain of invective, such as had sel- 
dom been heard, either in the Senate or at the Bar. 
The effect produced was extraordinary. The members 
of the Bar rose and followed him out of Court. A few 
days afterwards there was a meeting of the Bar, and 
strong resolutions were passed, condemning the conduct 
of the Bench ; and a vote of thanks to Mr. Fletcher, 
for having asserted the independence of the Bar, passed 
unanimously.* 

This event did not, it may well be supposed, ad- 
vance the interests of the young Barrister with the 
Bench. The Chief Baron he had offended by his ad- 
vocacy of the printer; the Judges of the King's Bench 
he had humiliated by his reply to their rebuke. He 
had also secured two enemies in reversion, — as he came 
into angry collision with the Attorney General, who, a 

until the year 1790, there were only three Judges in each of the supe- 
rior Courts in Ireland. 

* The resolutions were moved by Sir Frederick Flood, afterwards 
M. P. for the County Wexford. They were drawn up by the cele- 
brated Henry Flood, himself the son of a Judge. The first resolution 
was as follows : — 

"Resolved, — That respect is due from the Bench to the Bar, as well 
as from the Bar to the Bench." 



( 148 ) 

few years after, was Chief Justice,* and he offended 
Mr. Fitzgibbon, who was afterwards Lord Chancellor. 
Fortunately for him, however, Lord Lifford at this 
time held the Great Seal : he was an excellent lawyer, 
and an honest man. In the Court of Chancery he rose 
into considerable business ; and having also succeeded 
on his circuit, his fortune was secured. Unhappily for 
him, Lord Lifford died in 1789, and Lord Fitzgibbon, 
who succeeded him, very soon allowed his personal 
antipathies to display themselves^. To Mr. Curran he 
had an enmity of some years' standing: he had quar- 
relled with him more than once in the House of Com- 
mons, and had fought a duel with him in consequence. 
It is not known how Mr. Fletcher provoked his deadly 
animosity, but he appears to have hated him and Mr. 
Curran with the most impartial hatred. Accordingly, 
he succeeded in nearly altogether excluding both from 
business in his Court. In 1794, on the arrival of Lord 
Fitzwilliam in Ireland, Mr. Fletcher was created a 
King's Counsel, greatly to the displeasure of the Chan- 
cellor. He had obtained a seat in Parliament some 
time previously, which he held for four years. His 
speeches at the Bar have been very badly reported, 
and he had neither time nor inclination to revise them. 
The truth was, that he never prepared any portion of 

* Mr. Scott, Chief Justice of the King's Bench and Earl of Clon- 
raell, was a good pistol-shot and a regular fire-eater. He was about 
to scold Mr. Fletcher, when the latter took a pen and piece of paper, 
saying, "Go on, Sir, we can settle matters out of Courl." 

The offence given to Mr. Fitzgibbon (afterwards Earl of Clare) was 
this: — He asked Mr. Fletcher to request the members of the Bar not 
to call a meeting, adding, "It cannot be your object to degrade the 
Bench, of which, one day, you must become an ormanent." Mr. 
Fletcher declined acceding to his request, and this was the origin of 
the enmity which continued to exist between them until a year be- 
fore Lord Clare's death ; when, having quarrelled with Lord Castle- 
reagh, whom he knew Mr. Fletcher abhorred, he seized every oppor- 
tunity of complimenting the latter; on one occasion requesting him, 
in open Court, to meet him in his chamber, as he wished to consult 
him on a point of Civil Law, 



( 149 ) 

his speeches; he did not even arrange the topics. The 
consequence of this was, that he became discursive, and 
sometimes prolix ; but, on the other hand, most energetic, 
and perfectly natural. Among his best speeches at the 
Bar, were his defence of Peter Finnerty for a seditious 
libel, and his speech on behalf of the defendant in 
Hevey v. Sirr. On the former trial, his statement of 
what constituted the real liberty and just prerogatives 
of the press, and his definition of loyalty, were felicitous 
at once in conception and execution. The passage on 
loyalty has been preserved : it gave great offence at the 
time. " I have heard much of loyalty during this trial; 
of late the word has been constantly chimed in my 
ears. If by loyalty is meant an attachment to the Con- 
stitution as established in 1688, the prerogative of the 
Crown accurately defined, the liberties of the people 
securely guaranteed, then no man is more loyal than 
myself; but if by the word is meant an exaltation of 
the prerogative by a depression of the other branches of 
the constitution, then for my part I must say, that I 
reject, I abhor, I repudiate such loyalty." 

In the case of Hevey v. Sirr, he was opposed to Cur- 
ran, whose speech on behalf of the plaintiff was one of 
his most splendid efforts. Fletcher, aware that the 
law and facts told strongly against his client, and that 
Curran's speech had produced a great effect, betook 
himself to ridicule, and to the great surprise of the Bar, 
kept the Court and jury in a roar of laughter at Curran's 
expense. The result was, that the jury only gave one 
hundred and fifty pounds damages, when a verdict for 
five thousand was confidently expected. 

His last great forensic speech was at the Donegall 
assizes, in 1805; when he stated the case of General 
Hart, in an action of libel brought against the proprie- 
tor of a newspaper. The trial excited great interest, 
from the circumstance of many of the gentry of the 
county beings involved in it. — Among others, the late 
Marquess of Abercorn, a firm friend of General Hart 



( 150 ) 

(who for many years represented the county.) The 
libel was a commentary on the conduct of the General, 
whom Judge Fox had accused, at a previous assizes, 
of having tampered with a jury. The learned Judge 
had also pronounced a fierce invective against Lord 
Abercorn. In consequence of this he was summoned 
to the bar of the House of Peers, and was actually on 
his trial when this action was pending. General Hart 
had served with distinction in the campaign which ter- 
minated by the capture of Seringapatam. It so hap- 
pened, that the regiment to which he belonged was 
quartered in the neighbourhood of Lifford* during the 
trial. The court was crowded with military: all the 
officers, without an exception, attended. There were 
two passages in this speech, which, from the great effect 
they produced, deserve to be recorded.f 

"The libeller has sneered at the honour of my client — 
* he should desire, forsooth, to have heard more of 
virtue and less of honour ;' but, as all morality must be 
based on religion, so must honour be the foundation of 
virtue. The Athenians beautifully illustrated this senti- 
ment; for at Athens the entrance to the temple of 
virtue lay through the temple of honour." Again : " I 
appeal to the gentry of the county, among whom my 
client has lived many years, if his character be such as 
this libeller has described. I conjure the testimony of 
his tenants ; nay, I would be content to ask his domes- 
tic servants, if their master deserves the language ap- 
plied to him. But above all, I implore the gallant 
soldiers whom he so often led to victory, to say, is their 
leader this dishonest man? I adjure the voice of his 
brother officers, to whom my gallant client has been a 
friend, a patron, an example; nay, I invoke the shades 
of the gallant men who fell at Seringapatam, and who, 

* The town in which the assizes for the County Donegall are 
held. 

f The writer had this account from two barristers who were pre- 
sent at the trial. 



( 151 ) 

by their heart's blood, cemented that glorious victory, 
to attest that Hart could not even meditate dishonour." 

The effect of this passage was electrical. All the 
military started up and waved hats and handkerchiefs. 
It was near half an hour before order could be restored. 
The year after, Mr. Fletcher was raised to the Bench. 

Before we review his judicial career, it may be not 
out of place to consider his qualifications as a Senator. 

His only parliamentary speech which has reached us 
was delivered on the second reading of the Catholic 
Emancipation Bill, in 1793. It evinced great ability, 
but was somewhat aristocratic in its tone. He said, 
" that instead of conferring the elective franchise on 
forty shilling freeholders, they should render Catholics 
eligible to seats in Parliament. Without that conces- 
sion, they never would be contented ; and if long de- 
layed, you might see a Catholic majority returned for 
the counties and open towns by means of a Catholic 
constituency." His speech on Parliamentary Reform, 
in 1797, was considered a most able argument; but it 
was wretchedly reported. Not more than a few frag- 
ments have been published.* A speech delivered by 
him in 1794, on a motion made by Mr. Grattan for an 
inquiry into the measures taken for the defence of the 
country, produced a very extraordinary sensation out of 
doors. Nearly the whole of the speech consisted of 
nautical details, and was principally on the inadequate 
naval protection afforded to Ireland. He said, " that 
twenty-four sail of the line and eight frigates were 
necessary to protect the Irish coast, and called on the 
gallant officerf on the other side to contradict him if 
he was inaccurate. He should not regard the denial 
of any of the Lord Lieutenant's Ministers." There 

* Nothing could be worse than the parliamentary reporting in Ire- 
land. The reporters had no idea of taking any trouble; indeed, they 
always expected that the speakers should report themselves. 

t Admiral Pakenham, afterwards G. C. B. He was member for 
the County Westmeath for many years. 



( 152 ) 

was a pause for a few minutes, when Sir Thomas 
Pakenham rose and said, " that having been appealed 
to, he must say that he agreed in opinion with the 
honourable and learned gentleman, and that he had not 
overstated the number of vessels requisite to afford ade- 
quate protection." 

In the last Irish Parliament, Mr. Fletcher had not a 
seat. He saw clearly that the Union must be carried, 
and he wished the members of his party to stipulate for 
commercial advantages, and a greatly diminished rate 
of taxation ; but above all, that there should not be any 
representative Peers or Bishops. His advice was re- 
jected, and the union passed with but few stipulations, 
all of which were violated. 

His judicial career extended over a period of seven- 
teen years. 

As a Judge, he was undoubtedly one of the greatest 
magistrates that Ireland ever produced. To vast legal 
learning he added immense stores of varied erudition. 
He had an extraordinary command of language, and 
possessed a great faculty of lucid arrangement, and of 
analysis. As a Crown Judge, he was pre-eminently the 
first of his time in either country. To a profound know- 
ledge of Crown Law, (a subject very much neglected 
and undervalued,) he added great humanity and pa- 
tience, (although in a civil court he was often impatient, 
and even irritable.) His medical knowledge was here 
of considerable avail. In no fewer than three cases of 
alleged poisoning, he was enabled to save the lives of 
the prisoners. Two of the cases were indictments of 
women for poisoning their husbands. His most cele- 
brated judgment is that delivered in the case of Taafe 
against Chief Justice Downes,in 1813.* This was un- 

* An action of false imprisonment, brought by Mr. Taafe against 
the Chief Justice of the King's Bench, who pleaded " that he acted ju- 
dicially." Mr. Taafe demurred. Judge Fletcher pronounced judgment 
in favour of the demurrer, the other three Judges against it. But one 



( 153 ) 

questionably a master-piece of eloquence and erudition. 
The report, although very accurate as to substance, 
made sad havock of the language. The passage in 
which he denies the justice of Montesquieu's prophecy, 
" that the English Constitution would perish when the 
Executive became more corrupt than the Administra- 
tive power," has been strangely disfigured. — "No, 
President Montesquieu: the British Constitution can 
never entirely perish. Kings may become tyrannical, 
Ministers corrupt, Parliaments venal ; still the last re- 
fuge of expiring Liberty shall be found in the temple of 
Justice."* 

His judgment in the King against O'Grady, which 
was pronounced in 1817, has been very accurately re- 
ported in every respect.f This case displayed his 
11 black letter learning " very strikingly; several cases in 
the Year Books, which had not been even alluded to at the 
Bar, were cited by him on this occasion; but the charge 
delivered to the Grand Jury of the County of Wexford 
in 1814,J is that by which he is best known in this 
country. Never did a judicial charge create such a 
sensation. It was copied into every newspaper in Great 
Britain and Ireland. Forty additions of it in a pamphlet 
form were published. The Government press assailed 
the composition and its author with every species of 
abuse for six months. Threats of impeachment were 
uttered, and more than one Privy Council was held in 
Dublin to consider what measures should be adopted ; 

of these, Judge Fox, said he agreed with his brother Fletcher, that 
the Chief Justice acted illegally ; but he was of opinion that no ac- 
tion could lie. 

* This was reported in the following style : — " But I will venture, 
to tell Mr. President Montesquieu," &c, &c. 

t An action in the nature of quo warranto against Mr. Walter 
O'Grady, for usurping the office of Clerk of the Pleas in the Court of 
Exchequer. 

X This charge is to be found in Dodsley's Annual Register of 1814, 
and also in Valpji's Pamphleteer. 
14 



( 154 ) 

however it was discovered that there was abundant 
proof of many of the illegal acts stigmatized in the 
charge ; and Sir Robert Peel (then Chief Secretary to 
the Lord Lieutenant,) had sagacity enough to perceive, 
that although a Whig Judge might be arraigned before 
the House of Lords, yet several Tory Magistrates must 
have been prosecuted.* Judge Fletcher was the first, 
beyond all doubt, who gave the Orange system a 
deadly blow. It survived him many years ; but it car- 
ried in its body the mortal wounds he had inflicted. 
His style was too diffuse and discursive ; partaking 
largely of the faults he found in Sir Edward Coke. It 
strongly resembled that of Johnson, except that he al- 
ways preferred words of Saxon origin to those derived 
from the Latin. 

Of wit he had not a particle ; but he possessed very 
considerable humour, which was, however, of rather a 
saturine cast, strongly resembling that of the Spaniards. 
He had another resemblance to Spanish writers in his 
love of proverbs, of which he had a great store, and 
they sometimes escaped from him in his judgments and 
charges, but he always struck them out when he had 
an opportunity of revision. As a classical scholar he 
was of the first order, more particularly in Greek. 
With French and Italian literature he was extremely 
familiar ; was deeply read in logics and metaphysics ; 
and what may startle many who recollect him, was an 
excellent theologian. In politics he was a decided 
Whig ; but was by no means pleased at being consi- 
dered a party man. In his charge to the Grand Jury 
at Wexford, he declared that the reason he had been 
so often calumniated on all sides was, " because he was 
not a party man," He was the last Irish Whig of the 

* Several Magistrates in Ireland were in the habit of signing blank 
affidavits, which were given to Orangemen and other excellent Pro- 
testants, to fill up as they liked. 



( 155 ) 

old school. He died in June, 1823, having nearly com- 
pleted his seventy-second year. He used to say " two 
measures are indispensably necessary for the salvation 
of Great Britain, Catholic Emancipation and Parlia- 
mentary Reform, but I shall not live to see either :" — 
and so it happened. 



( 156 ) 



CHAPTER XXVI. 



HENRY GRATTAN. 



Henry Grattan was the only Irishman who attained 
the highest eminence both in the British and in the 
Irish House of Commons. His illustrious rival Flood 
absolutely failed in his first speech in St. Stephens, 
which was on Fox's East India bill ; and although his 
oration on Parliamentary Reform in 1790 was consi- 
dered a great effort of genius by the discerning few, yet 
it produced but little effect. The career of George 
Ponsonby in the Irish House, was comparatively short. 
Grattan, after the triumphs of twenty-five years in the 
Irish House of Commons was a distinguished ornament 
of the United Parliament for a considerable period.* 

His speeches during the former part of his career, 
have been so amply reported, and so much has been 
written on Irish History from 1770 to 1800, that it 
would be unprofitable and tedious to dwell on that pe- 
riod.f His two great achievements were the revolu- 
tion effected in 1782, and the Irish Regency bill in 1789 ; 
had his advice been taken at the former period, there 
would not have been an Irish Rebellion, and the neces- 
sity of a legislative union would not have existed. 

* His first speech in the British Parliament was in 1805, his last in 
1820. 

t All that is desirable to know of those times may be found in 
Hardy's life of Charlemont, and the life of Grattan by his son Henry, 
who also edited a very correct and excellent edition of his father's 
speeches and miscellaneous works, in five volumes, which no lover of 
liberty should fail to have. 



( 157 ) 

His great labours were directed to achieve Catholic 
Emancipation, and to effect the abolition of tithes. On 
the former measure his speeches are familiar to every 
one, but those on the latter are not so generally known. 
With consummate ability and unwearied zeal he laid 
bare the frightful system of tithe oppression and cleri- 
cal rapacity, the injury inflicted on agriculture, the 
heart-burnings, the tumults, nay, the insurrections, 
which were the fruits of that appalling curse, the tithe 
system. His first speech in the United Parliament was 
in May, 1805, on the motion of Mr. Fox to consider the 
Catholic claims ; great fears were entertained for his 
success ; he was fifty-seven years of age, and the theatre 
on which he was now to appear was totally different 
from the former stage of his glory, the failure, too, of 
Flood, was in the recollection of many. At first there 
was a feeling of surprise, a buzz ran through the gal- 
leries, many whispered, "this is not an Irishman, but a 
Frenchman." His voice and manner were so peculiar, 
his style so forcible yet so novel to the House, that his 
friends were at first doubtful of his success, but as he 
proceeded he so insinuated himself into the affections of 
the assembly — his appeals to the head and the heart 
were at once so earnest, and so impassioned, that pity, 
virtue, and honour, appeared to have enlisted on his 
side ; he gained all the trophies except the majority. 

Pitt pronounced the most glowing eulogy on this 
speech ; the principles, reasoning, and facts of which he 
did not combat, but denied that the fitting time for eman- 
cipation had arrived. Of all the speeches which Grat- 
tan had delivered on the Catholic question, that which 
he pronounced in February, 1813, was perhaps the most 
efficient and convincing ; for the first time in the British 
Parliament the motion for inquiry was carried by a ma- 
jority of no less than forty. He but seldom spoke on 
questions unconnected with Ireland. His most striking 
speech, perhaps, was that on the motion of Lord Castle- 

14* 




( 158 ) 

reagh, in 1815, to address the Prince Regent in appro- 
bation of the measures adopted against Napoleon. On 
this question the Grenvilles differed from the old Whigs, 
the former declaring for war, the latter for peace. Mr. 
Grattan, to the extreme surprise of his party, rose im- 
mediately after Mr. John Smith, who had seconded 
the amendment moved by Lord George Cavendish,* 
and after some compliments to the mover and seconder 
of the address, f proceeded in a most unequivocal manner 
to advocate the expediency of war. J 

This speech exhibited all his merits, and all his de- 
fects — the latter, however, were few, the former pre- 
eminently great. Among the blemishes may be noted 
a coinage of words, and a forcing of antithesis; " a stra- 
tocracy elective," " military aggressive ;" again, " a 
country that can endure no government, and a ruler 
who can tolerate no liberty." This speech, evidently the 
result of study, was, perhaps, the only one which he had 
altogether prepared. He delivered it with more than 
ordinary animation. It was, doubtless, the finest ora- 
tion uttered in the House of Commons since the death 
of Fox, and nothing fit to be compared to it has been 
heard since. 

The style of Grattan was very peculiar; it was formed 
partly on Tacitus, partly on Junius. Antithesis, per- 
haps, occurred too often, and there was at times a re- 
dundancy of epigram, but always conveying an argu- 
ment or a sting. 

His powers of condensation were extraordinary, more 

* Lord George Cavendish, uncle to the present Duke of Devonshire' 
afterwards Earl of Burlington. 

t Mr. John Smith, uncle to Lord Carrington, M. P. for Nottingham. 

X With the exception of Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Law, all the 
speakers were Whigs or Liberals, and all spoke from the opposition 
side of the House. For the amendment, Lord George Cavendish, Mr. 
John Smith, Sir Francis Burdett, Mr. George Ponsonby and Mr. 
Tierney; against it, Mr. Grattan, Mr. C. Wynn, Lord Milton, Mr. 
Plunket. 



( 159 ) 

so than those of any other, except Dunning 1 ; # but although 
terse and concise, he was never obscure. His sentences 
contained not only pith, but force ; strength, combined 
with grace ; solid ore skilfully elaborated ; the strength 
of Hercules, the grace of Apollo. t He never repeated 
himself: he dilated not a theme through twenty varia- 
tions ; his coin was struck off at one heat — the impression 
produced by a single blow. His invective was most for- 
midable ; bitter, cutting, corroding ; but tinctured with a 
strong vein of humour. There was in it, however, so 
much personality, that it never could have been tolerated 
in an English House of Commons. He knew this, and 
did not attempt it. 

The only occasion on which he gave vent to bitterness 
was in reply to Mr. Perceval, who, during the debate on 
the Catholic question, in 1811, commented severely on a 
recent publication of Dr. Milner's, and, with his usual 
adroitness, attempted to fix the opinions of the author on 
the Irish Catholics 4 Grattan fired at this, and said 
"that the Chancellor of the Exchequer had uttered three 
falsehoods ; the first remarkable for dulness ; the second 
for pertness ; the third had nothing to recommend it but 
its vulgar jocularity." Here there were loud cries of 
order. He proceeded — " I cry order also ; I have used 
a word of two syllables instead of one." His alterca- 
tions with Henry Flood and Mr. Corry are known to 
every one ; in both instances a challenge passed. § 

His mode of preparing his speeches was very peculiar. 

* Mr. Dunning used to say, that he could compress the most abstruse 
law argument within the period of half an hour. He has, unfortunate- 
ly, left no imitators. 

t The difference between his speeches and those of the present day, 
is that of bullion and gold-beater's leaf. 

t Dr. Milner, a Catholic Clergyman, made an excursion into Ireland 
in 1812, and published a most injudicious book, which did the Catholic 
cause great mischief. 

§ Mr. Grattan and Mr. Flood were arrested before they could meet. 
Mr. Corry was wounded. 



( 160 ) 

He did not write much, but he rehearsed the greater 
portion of his harangues. When he hit upon a passage 
which pleased him, he committed it to writing. It is not 
a little singular, that his invectives were for the most 
part prepared : among others, the celebrated one against 
Flood. He, however, did not seek an occasion for intro- 
ducing 1 these fierce assaults ; but he considered the cha- 
racters and conduct of the men with whom he was likely 
to come into collision, and arranged his weapons accord- 
ingly. These prepared diatribes he pleasantly styled 
his " pocket pistols." They were, however, more for 
defence than attack, as he seldom fired the first shot. 
In the two instances of Flood and Corry, it was not he 
who sought the quarrel. 

His manner was very peculiar. His gestures would, 
in another, be deemed extravagant, and his pauses might 
be thought protracted. But this eccentric manner set off 
his peculiar style ; — there was such a harmony in all the 
parts of his speeches — such a consistency in his conduct, 
that his blemishes seem beauties. One of the great 
charms of his character was his simplicity. He had 
much playfulness of manner, a gentle, yet a buoyant 
spirit ; the heart of a child, the soul of a demigod. 

In private society he was a most agreeable companion ; 
abounding in anecdote and reminiscences of all his dis- 
tinguished contemporaries and predecessors. He pos- 
sessed great facility in sketching a character in few 
words, or describing a peculiarity. On one occasion, it 
having been remarked that there were not any accurate 
likenesses of Pitt, whether in sculpture or in painting, but 
that there many of Fox, he said, "there never was a 
good likeness of Pitt, or a bad one of Fox; his counte- 
nance expressed every virtue that a man could possess ; 
Pitt's features had no expression but that of drunkenness." 
Having been questioned as to the personal appearance of 
Sir William Grant, he replied, " a face of iron, and a 
wig of stone." Can any thing be much happier than 



( 161 ) 

his description of the late Lord Ellenborough ? — "East- 
ern principles and Northern manners." 

As a scholar he was not very profound ; nor had he any 
very extensive range of knowledge. He was emphati- 
cally "a man of few books." The authors he chiefly 
prized were Demosthenes, Virgil, Juvenal, Tacitus, and 
Milton. To these may be added Cicero ; but he did not 
cherish him as he did the others.* There was one cir- 
cumstance which peculiarly distinguished him ; he was 
the only man of first rate eminence during his time, who 
never held office of any kind. On this point, he differed 
altogether in opinion from Flood, who, like Canning, 
thought office indispensable to carry his principles into 
effect. 

His miscellaneous writings exhibit the same charac- 
teristics as his speeches: they are evidently of the same 
family, although the features may not all be similar. 
His letter to Lord Clare, published in 1798, contains a 
character of his rival Flood, eloquently descriptive and 
accurately just. In 1816, a pamphlet appeared, styled 
" Faction unmasked." This was never acknowledged 
as his, but there can be little doubt that he was the au- 
thor of it. It was exceedingly caustic and bitter, but 
rather coarse in some parts. It must be considered, 
however, that it was applied to very coarse persons 
and very ignoble proceedings.-)- 

At the general election in 1818, he was re-elected for 
the city of Dublin, along with Sir Robert Shaw. As 
the car passed by a place called Cole's-lane, where a 

* The writer once heard him say, that he thought Cicero indulged 
too much in personalities; and said that the second Philippic could not 
have been spoken as it has reached us. — " Personalities never avail: they 
cannot be tolerated in a civilized assembly. No one appeals to the pis. 
tol until he has lost his cause." After this, let the gentle reader pe- 
ruse the assaults on Flood and Corry. 

t He had been repeatedly abused at the Catholic Board and Aggre- 
gate meetings. At length the petition of the Irish Catholics was taken 
from him, and entrusted to Sir Henry Parnell. 



( 162 ) 

market was held, a gang of ruffians, amounting in num- 
ber to more than a hundred, rushed forth and dragged 
both the members from the chair, mal-treated them, and 
would have committed murder, had not the gentlemen 
who attended the chairing being reinforced by the of- 
ficers of the Post Office, in the immediate vicinity of 
which the outrage was committed. In consequence of 
this assault, Mr. Grattan was indisposed for a short pe- 
riod. Addresses poured in to him from all quarters* 
Every guild, corporation, or union of trades, sent depu- 
tations expressive of condolence and indignation. His 
answers were eminently characteristic of the man, — all 
alike breathing eloquent feelings, patriotism, benevo- 
lence. In one reply he says, " I shall ever remember 
the kindness of my countrymen ; I have forgotten their 
faults." 

It is not a little singular, that there was no man who 
had a greater number of enemies than Grattan. Every 
knave, peculator, or tyrant, had an instinctive horror of 
him : every one who hated virtue, humanity, or liberty, 
held him in abhorrence. He had no vices to please the 
Aristocracy — no hypocrisy to conciliate Kings — no fol- 
lies to captivate the populace. His private life was as 
pure as his public career was noble. The sun of his 
glory, which rose in splendour, set in serene magni- 
ficence, without exhibiting, at any period, dimness, ob- 
scuration, or spots upon its disk. 

His life was gentle, and the elements 

So mixed in him, that Nature might stand up 

And say to all the world — this was a man.* 



* Many years since, the author was present at a conversation be- 
tween Mr. Grattan and Judge Fletcher, on the subject of the Repeal of 
the Union; which at that time had been mooted in some of the Irish 
newspapers, and also at some popular meetings. The former always 
considered repeal impossible ; the latter held a contrary opinion. The 
Judge said, "I think, when the measure of Catholic Emancipation 




/>*?*- 



( 163 ) 

shall be carried — and carried it must be — that the Protestants and 
Catholics will unite in demanding repeal ; they will be assisted by the 
Scotch and English Dissenters, to produce a Parliamentary Reform 
pro tanto." Grattan replied, " I fear the high Protestants and the Ca- 
tholies can never coalesce ; either sect will commit outrages, perhaps 
both.'' 1 Fletcher then said, " Perhaps so ; but a demand for a repeal of 
the Union will certainly be made, sooner or later, and it must be con- 
ceded, unless a Parliamentary Reform bill should be carried ; then, in- 
deed, repeal would become impossible." 



( 164 ) 



CHAPTER XXVII. 

JOHN, DUKE OF BEDFORD. 

When the Whig Administration was formed in 1806, 
there were numerous applications for the office of Lord 
Lieutenant of Ireland : Mr. Fox, however, with great 
sagacity, selected the Duke of Bedford for that station, 
which, however exalted, was one of great difficulty at 
this period. The insurrection of 1798 was not forgot- 
ten, the Union had been but of five years' duration, the 
mad attempt at rebellion by the amiable, misguided 
Emmett was still fresh in the memory of the people, 
an agrarian insurrection was raging in Connaught, — 
it was evident that no ordinary man was required as 
Irish Viceroy. 

It is now admitted by all impartial men, that the 
Duke of Bedford was the best fitted for that office of 
any man who had held it since Lord Chesterfield.* 
Lord Fitzwilliam had great virtues and rare qualifica- 
tions, but he was not always firm. What is required 
in a Governor of Ireland is uniformity of conduct ; not 
only justice, but consistency are requisite; and these 
qualities the Duke of Bedford possessed in an eminent 
degree. His calm temper, his strong common sense,f 
his uniform benevolence, calm dignity, and unstudied 

* Lord Chesterfield was recalled in 1746. Very shortly after, a tithe 
insurrection broke out in Tipperary, and extended to the greater part 
of Munster. 

t That very uncommon quality, especially in statesmen. 



165 ) 

courtesy, inspired at once affection and respect. The 
difficulties which beset him were of no ordinary kind ; 
all the departments were filled by enemies and spies; 
the Custom House, the Barrack Board, and stamp Of- 
fice, contained whole regiments of sworn Orange- 
men ; the Bishops were for the most part, rank Tories, 
bigotted, illiberal, and intolerant ; a majority of the 
Judges were unenlightened, ignorant and incompetent; 
the Assistant Barristers were political partisans ; most 
of the Magistracy were virulent Tories ; to these bo- 
dies we must add forty regiments of militia, a large 
yeomanry force, numerous volunteer corps, and as an 
army of reserve, the Clergy of the Established Church. 
But this was not all; the Dublin Corporation was in full 
vigour ; its vast estates had not as yet been squandered, 
all the Aldermen were magistrates, all the Police Offi- 
cers Corporators, the Grand Jury of the City of Dublin 
were selected from the Corporation :* these circum- 
stances rendered that " ancient body of Protestants " a 
most formidable phalanx. It must also be borne in mind, 
that a large addition to the Irish Peerage had been made 
at the Union, and that many of the Peers were mem- 
bers of the Privy Council.f 

With this array against him how was the Viceroy 
to act? His conduct soon supplied an answer — with 
gentle firmness. Connaught was in a state of insur- 
rection ; a renewal of the insurrection act was proposed ; 
it was refused, and instead a special commission was 

* The City of Dublin Grand Jury levied large assessments; in Mer- 
rion Square alone their taxation amounted to £900 a year. It is to be 
observed that it was not necessary that the Grand Jury should be se- 
lected from the Corporation, but the High Sheriffs, who were elected 
by the Corporation, never failed to have a large majority of the Grand 
Jury selected from that body. 

t At this time there were four Irish Lords of the Treasury who 
were all Privy Councillors ; in addition the following important per- 
sonages had seats at the Privy Council : — Four Archbishops, two Bi- 
shops, two Post Masters General, two Muster-Masters General, two 
Chief Commissioners of Customs, Chancellor of the Exchequer, Vice 
Treasurer, Attorney General. 

15 



( 166 ) 

issued, the criminals were tried before the ordinary tri- 
bunals, and in two months tranquillity was restored.* 
Another circumstance evinced his determination to be 
impartial, which, although it may appear trifling, yet 
had considerable effect. The Dublin Corporators had 
for a considerable number of years decorated the Sta- 
tue of William the Third, which stands in College Green, 
with orange and purple ribands, on the twelfth of July, 
and on the fourth of November ; the loyal yeomanry 
and militia were generally reviewed on those days, and 
fired several volleys over the God of their idolatry; oc- 
casionally the troops of the line assisted in this mis- 
chievous display, but that was of rare occurrence. On 
the twelfth of July which followed the Duke's arrival in 
Dublin, the statue was decorated as usual, but the troops 
were absent. It was presumed that as the review had 
been countermanded some days previously, that the 
Orange display would have been suppressed ; but, on 
the contrary, the statue was more gaudy than ever. 
No notice was taken of this conduct, but on the second 
of November following, an order was issued prohibiting 
the decoration of the statue on the birth-day of William 
the Third, and directing the Police Magistrates to en- 
force this order. 

The country had now become perfectly tranquil; 
commercial prosperity revived ; the wise system of the 
Irish Chancellor of the Exchequer,! by the abolition of 
the duty on corn exported from Ireland, had advanced 
the agriculture of Ireland in an extraordinary degree. 
A happier day had dawned, but the horizon was soon 
clouded ; the Duke of Bedford was recalled ; all the of- 
ficers of government resigned ;J a military government, 

* The insurgents assumed the name of Thrashers. The trials were 
very well reported by Mr. Ridgway, and are to be found in Howell's 
State Trials, year 1806. 

f Sir Sohn Newport, who still lives, and must ever live in the heart 
of every man who can cherish spotless integrity, chivalrous honour, sin- 
cere patriotism, and unpretending talent. 

X Mr. Plunket, who had been appointed Attorney General during 



( 167 ) 

savage, despotic, ignorant, and illiberal was inflicted on 
unhappy Ireland.* 

The Viceroy proceeded to the yacht which was to 
convey him to England, escorted by many thousands. 
No tumult; no applause; the people only wept : they 
felt that they were assisting at the obsequies of libery. 
The Duke and Duchess of Bedford reluctantly embarked. 
They remained on deck saluting the people. The ves- 
sel slowly receded from the pier ; it was in sight more 
than an hour. Until the close of that hour, the Duke 
was able to descry thousands on their knees, imploring 
blessings on the only Viceroy who had ever possessed 
both the power and the will to benefit Ireland. The 
Duke and his consort might securely sleep on the night 
of the day, with the consciousness that they had the 

benediction of millions.f 

-* * * * * 

He never afterwards held office, and but seldom 
spoke in the House of Lords. Upon the occasion of 
the Six Acts having been introduced, he rose to pro- 
test against them. The employment of spies having 
been justified, he indignantly exclaimed, " My Lords, I 
abhor this system of espoinnage : I thank God, there is 
no equivalent word in the English language.'' He fre- 
quently attended public meetings, and always expressed 

the government of Lord Hardwicke, continued to hold that office under 
the Duke of Bedford, with whom he resigned. 
* The Irish Government was as follows: — 

Lord Lieutenant — Liet. -General the Duke of Richmond. 

Chief Secretary — Major General Sir Arthur Wellesley, K. B. 

Chancellor of the Exchequer — Rt. Hon. John Foster. 

Lord Chancellor — Lord Manners. 

Attorney-General — Mr. Saurin. 

Mr. Bush continued Solicitor-General, 
t It was an awful blunder of Earl Grey, to have appointed the 
Marquess of Anglesey to the Lieutenancy of Ireland, instead of the 
Duke of Bedford. The latter never would have permitted the unhappy 
clerical and legal appointments in which the former indulged ; and for 
which, to do him justice, he has felt deep remorse, and has not hesitated 
to avow it. 



( 168 ) 

himself with dignity and propriety. On one occasion, 
he animadverted with a severity unusual in him on the 
political conduct of the Duke of Buckingham, and the 
Grenville party, which had recently deserted ; this led 
to a duel, which happily had no fatal result. 

In his letter to Dr. Parr, he expresses himself with 
the same cordiality and sincere love of liberty which 
marked his entire career. He encouraged farming, 
horticulture, the drama ; every science, every pursuit, 
which could add to the comforts, the advancement, or 
the solace of his countrymen. What blessings may 
not one man confer, who has fixedness of purpose and 
honesty of heart. Were all British noblemen like the 
Duke of Bedford, there would be no revolutions. When 
will the British Peers estimate their true position, and 
awake from the feverish dream which has bewildered 
them during the last ten years T 

"O fortnnati nitnium sua si bona norint." 

VlRGILIUS. 



( 169 ) 



CHAPTER XXVIIL 



APRIL, 1807. 

An Administration was speedily formed, more intole- 
rant than any which had existed for thirty years.* It 
was formed on the principle of Catholic exclusion : the 
question of emancipation was not to be entertained. In 
order that no misapprehension on this subject should 
exist, Mr. Perceval, instead of resuming his office of 
Attorney-General, became Chancellor of the Exchequer, 
and leader of the House of Commons; although Lord 
Castlereagh and Mr. Canning were both members of 
the Cabinet, and Mr. Perceval had never before held 
any other than a law situation. The new leader was 
virtually Premier : two years later he was first Minis- 

* The new Ministry was as follows : — 
Lord Chancellor— Lord Eldon. 
Lord Privy Seal — Earl of Westmoreland. 
President of Council— Earl of Camden. 
First Lord of the Treasury — Duke of Portland. 
Secretary of Foreign Affairs — Mr. Canning. 
■ "" ■ ' • •" War and Colonies-— Lord Castlereagh. 

Home Department — Lord Hawkesbury. 

Master General of Ordnance — Earl of Chatham. 

First Lord of Admiralty— 'Earl of Mulgrave. 

President of Board of Trade — Earl of Bathurst. 

President of India Board— Mr. Dundas. 

Chancellor of the Exchequer, and Chancellor of the Duchy of Lan* 

caster — Mr. Perceval. 
Attorney General-*Sir Vicary Gibbs. 
Solicitor General— Sir Thomas Plumer, 

15* 



( 170 ) 

ter, both in name and in fact, and continued so until his 
death. When we shall arrive at that period, we shall 
consider his character, and administration, which lasted 
more than five years. Few periods have been more 
eventful, more pregnant with important events and 
great results. 

The Parliament, which was little more than four 
months old, was dissolved ; a shout of " no Popery " 
was raised ; " the Church was in danger ;" " the good 
old King insulted and betrayed." Amid these yells, a 
new Parliament assembled, giving a large but wavering 
majority to Ministers. At this period the Radical party 
rose into comparative importance. Sir Francis Bur- 
dett and Lord Cochrane were returned for Westminster, 
beating Mr. Sheridan and Mr. Elliott by a majority of 
thousands.* The warlike propensities of the Tories 
were now amply gratified. In 1807, an expedition was 
fitted out against Copenhagen ; Denmark having refused 
to surrender its fleet, which the British Ministry as- 
serted was in danger of seizure by Napoleon. How 
the French Ruler, able as he was, could seize a fleet 
when he had no ships, did not very clearly appear. 
However, the British Ministry was intent on naval 
and military achievements ; an expedition sailed ; the 
entire Danish fleet was captured, a considerable part 
of Copenhagen was burnt, thousands of unoffending 
people were killed, much private property was de~ 
stroved ; 

" But they say 

It was a glorious victory." 

The results of this triumph were, the alienation of 

* Mr. Elliott was the Secretary for Ireland during the Bedford Ad- 
ministration. He belonged to the Grenville section; Mr. Sheridan to 
the old Whigs ; so that the Radicals beat both the old and new Whigs 
combined. The name of Radical did not come into use until ten 
years later : the writer is not certain whether Mr. Hunt, or Sir 
Francis Burdett was the author of the name. 



( 171 ) 

Denmark, and a pretext was afforded to Russia for 
breaking her alliance with Great Britain, an oppor- 
tunity was given of wresting Finland from our faithful 
ally Sweden, and a motive was supplied for declaring 
war against Austria two years later, instead of march- 
ing to her support. 

This attack on Copenhagen was every way produc- 
tive of calamity. It weakened the moral influence of 
Great Britain ; it alarmed the Russian government, 
which naturally thought that their fleet might next be 
an object of temptation ; and the blockade of Cronstadt, 
with the landing of a British army in Sweden, to co- 
operate with a Swedish force, might render St. Peters - 
burgh insecure. Besides, the Ottoman Porte, who was 
friendly to France, had been dethroned and executed ; 
his successor, on the contrary, was inclined to a British 
alliance. Napoleon had not as yet entered Spain : he 
had been hitherto invincible by land. Accordingly, 
Russia entered into close alliance with France, and ar- 
ranged a new annexation of Polish territory. She also 
planned another invasion of Turkey; and in the course 
of the next few years, indulged in conquests at the ex- 
pense of that power. She continued faithful to France 
as long as it served her interests ; the instant French 
power was on the wane, she joined England; having 
first violated every engagement with France. 

Napoleon, during the next year, committed his first 
great mistake ; he invaded Spain. His brother Joseph 
was proclaimed King. 






( H2 ) 



CHAPTER XXIX, 



PENINSULAR WAR. 



Great is the diversity of opinion as to the. remote 
and proximate causes of Napoleon's downfall. * By 
some, that great event is traced to his expedition against 
Russia ; by others, to his marriage with Maria Louisa ; 
by not a few, to his erection of new kingdoms, and his 
frequent parcelling and restless distribution of kingdoms 
and republics. There are others, who attribute his 
ruin to his neglect of Poland ; which he had the power 
of recalling into existence at the close of the Prussian 
campaign, in 1807; again, after the battle of Wagram, 
in 1807; and finally, in 1812, previous to his war with 
Russia. To me, it appears that his destruction is not 
to be attributed to any of these causes ; but to the inva- 
sion of Spain. Until this period, he had a plausible 
pretext, if not a just cause, for all his wars. Hitherto 
(whatever may be alleged by venal or prejudiced 
writers,) he had not been the aggressor. But for his 
invasion of Spain, he was without the shadow of an 
excuse : it was a great crime, and a superfluous one. 
It, however, brought with it its own punishment. 

The Spanish war, like a slow cancer, ate into the 
heart of France. A constant drain of men, an immense 
expenditure, and tarnished glory, were the bitter fruits 
of this war. He thought that he was undermining the 
finances of England : — he was so ; but he was forming 
her army, and instructing her officers, until at length 



( 173 ) 

England possessed a military force greatly superior to 
his own, in discipline, fortitude, and moral courage. 
He also afforded time and opportunity to Austria to 
make preparations for new campaigns. The evacua- 
tion of Portugal encouraged Austria to declare war in 
1809; the battle of Salamanca caused the defection of 
Prussia ; and the battle of Vittoria sealed the fate of 
Spain, decided the wavering councils of iVustria, by 
which his ruin was consummated. In 1808, he wrote 
to Junot, desiring that he would drive the English army 
into the sea; six years later, the triumphant standards 
of that army waved in triumph on the walls of Bor- 
deaux and Tholouse.* 

The Spanish war developed the weaknesses and vices 
of both parties. By the Whigs, all assistance to Spain 
was deprecated ; defeat was predicted, and financial 
embarrassment, the result either of victory or defeat. 
The Tories, on the other hand, had now an ample 
opportunity of indulging in their appetite for war, 
and enormous subsidies. Upon this occasion, both 
parties acted as factions — as partisan lawyers, not as 
statesmen ; and accordingly, were grossly in the wrong. 
The Whigs were guilty of despair; the Tories of false- 
hood and exaggeration. A British army was sent to 
Portugal, under the command of Sir Arthur Wellesley ; 
the battle of Vimiera was fought and gained. The 
same crisis occurred as at Waterloo : a panic seized 
the French infantry. At this moment, Sir Harry Bur- 
rard arrived : he superseded Wellesley, and on the field 
of battle arrested the victorious troops. He was unable 
to prevent a great victory — but for his interference, it 
would have been a decisive one. He had not time to 

* He who wishes to understand the conduct of Statesmen ! ! ! and 
to estimate the merit of our army, will study Colonel Napier's Penin- 
sular War ; a work, not only displaying great military genius, but ex- 
traordinary political sagacity, strict justice, profound wisdom, and rare 
impartiality; a workf which should find a place in the library of every 
General and Statesman. 



( 174 ) 

effect more mischief; for a few days afterwards he 
himself was superseded by Sir Hew Dalrymple. The 
convention of Cintra was concluded by the new Com- 
mander-in-Chief. It was much, but unjustly censured : 
great effects were produced by it. The army of Junot 
evacuated Portugal, surrendering all its military stores, 
and was conveyed to France. A court of inquiry was 
held on the two Generals; the convention of Cintra 
was approved of;* Sir Harry Burrard was declared to 
have been guilty of an error of judgment only. The 
year closed with the disastrous retreat to Corunna ; 
which, however, was redeemed by a glorious victory, 
achieved by the gallant, chivalrous, immolated Moore. 
This battle was gained at the beginning of January, 
1809 — a year, in every respect remarkable in the an- 
nals of Europe. 

* Two members of the Court dissented : — the Earl of Moira and 
the Earl of Pembroke. 



( 175 ) 



' CHAPTER XXX. 
1809. 

The Victory of Corunna, and the impending Austrian 
war saved Spain. The inquiry into the Duke of 
York's conduct, which lasted many months, was use- 
ful to Ministers, as it withdrew the attention of Parlia- 
ment from the conduct of two leading Ministers of State, 
and the Envoy to Spain.* Great reforms in the admi-* 
nistration of the army followed. The Duke of York 
resigned, and did not resume office for two years. His 
conduct and character are now of no consequence to 
posterity. 

In the summer, war broke out between France and 
Austria, single-handed. Austria was defeated, but she 
preserved her honour, and awaited with patience her 
opportunity for vengeance. On the 28th July, the bat- 

* Mr. Canning was at this time Secretary of State for Foreign Af- 
fairs ; Lord Castlereagh Secretary of State for War and the Colonies. 
The former appointed Mr. John Hookham Frere, Envoy extraordinary 
to the Spanish Regency. This gentleman took, upon himself to 
control and advise Sir John Moore ; and by his ignorance, pre- 
sumption and restlessness, very nearly caused the loss of the British 
army. It may be asked how Lord Castlereagh is responsible for the 
conduct of Mr. Frere, inasmuch as Mr. Canning appointed him ? 
The answer is, that it was the duty of Lord Castlereagh to correspond 
with Sir John Moore ; and when he discovered Mr. Frere's misconduct, 
he should have insisted on his dismissal, or have himself resigned. 
Colonel Napier's histery should be carefully studied on this subject, 
and indeed on every other connected with the Peninsular War. 



( 176 ) 

tie of Talavera was fought, and a bloody triumph was 
achieved, which owing to the gross misconduct of the 
Spanish generals, was unproductive of any signal advan- 
tage; a great moral effect, however, was produced. It 
was now proved beyond all doubt, that a French army 
can never withstand a British, where there is any ap- 
proach to equality of numbers. Confidence was thus 
inspired in officers and men ; and the commander-in-chief 
proved that he was able to contend successfully with 
Napoleon's marshals. On the same day, the Walcheren 
expedition sailed from the Downs, — the greatest arma- 
ment that had ever left the British shores.* This expe- 
dition was planned by Lord Castlereagh, and will for 
ever be remembered as a memorial of his signal inca- 
pacity and great political profligacy. He was well 
aware of the utter unfitness of Lord Chatham for the 
chief command : he had never commanded in chief be- 
fore ; he was without genius or experience, but it was 
desirable to give him a lucrative employment, and to 
obtain his seat in the Cabinet. 

A few days earlier, the disastrous tidings of Wagram 
arrived ; it was not even then too late to have despatched 
this force to Germany, as the Armistice which followed 
the defeat of Austria was for six weeks. If prudence 
alone was to govern British councils, this force should 
have been despatched to succour Wellington, who 
would then have had an immense superiority of force in 
Spain, and might have invaded France/f But something 

* The army was forty-four thousand strong ; the marines and sail- 
ors sixty-five thousand. The fleet mustered thirty-nine sail of the line ; 
thirty-six frigates and sloops, with bomb vessels and small Craft. The 
naval Commander-in-chief was Sir Richard Strachan, a most able 
officer. Indeed, the only incompetent men in the army were, Lord 
Chatham, commander-in-chief, and Sir EyreCoote, the second in com- 
mand. 

f The British army in the Peninsula never at any time exceeded 
forty-five thousand men; the army sent to Walcheren would have raised 
it to ninety thousand. In addition, there was a Portuguese army well 
disciplined and effective, and a Spanish army, which although feeble 
in the field, was sufficient for garrisons. 



( 177 ) 

original was to be attempted; the expedition sailed for 
Flushing, which was captured, together with a garrison 
of six thousand. It was found impracticable to take Ant- 
werp. Had the expedition even then sailed for Spain, all 
would have been well ; but Walcheren was retained for 
three months. By its pestilential marshes, more than 
twenty thousand perished ; a greater loss than was sus- 
tained at Vimiera, Corunna, and Talavera, even with the 
addition of the wounded. The two Secretaries of State, 
who had planned and organized this expedition, resigned 
and fought a duel, in which one of them was wounded.* A 
considerable change took place in the administration.f 
On the-twenty-fifth of October, a jubilee was cele- 
brated in honour of the king having entered the fiftieth 
year of his reign. Splendid illuminations took place in 
every city and town of the United Kingdom ; all the 
corporations feasted ; the King pardoned all deserters, 
and generously paid the debts of the poorer insolvents 
with a few thousands of the public money ; the people 
were invited to go to church, to return thanks for the 
prolonged reign of " the father of his people." Thus the 

* The duel between Lord Castlereagh and Mr. Canning was pro- 
ductive of very important consequences; and produced very extraordi- 
nary disclosures. It was proved that Mr. Canning had the dismissal 
of Lord Castlereagh in his pocket for more than four months. During 
that time, they were acting together in the preparation of a most ex- 
tensive expedition; and also in the conduct of the Peninsular war. Mr. 
Canning declared that his colleague was incompetent to fill the situ- 
ation of Secretary for War; and yet when that Colleague held a high- 
er situation, he did not think it unbecoming to accept from him an 
embassy, and afterwards a secondary Cabinet office. This conduct de- 
stroyed Mr. Canning's character for a time ; however, he afterwards re- 
deemed it, as we shall see hereafter. 

t First Lord of the Treasury, Chancellor of the Exchequer, and 
Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, — Mr. Perceval. 

Secretary of State, Home Department, — Mr. Ryder. 

. ■ Foreign affairs, — Marquess Wellesley. 

Colonies, — Lord Liverpool. 

NOT OF THE CABINET. 

Secretary at War, — Lord Palmerson. 

Secretaries of the* Treasury, — Mr. Arbuthnot and Mr. Wharton. 

16 



( 1^8 ) 

year which commenced with the funereal victory of 
Corunna, closed with unmanly rejoicings, gluttony, 
drunkenness, buffoonery, and hypocrisy. Did no one 
think of the widows and orphans of the brave men sacri- 
ficed in Walcheren ? 



( 179 ) 



CHAPTER XXXI. 



1810. 



The conduct of the House of Commons, in reference 
to the Walcheren expedition, was most extraordinary : 
a motion for inquiry was moved by Lord Porchester 
and Mr. Wyndham, which was carried by a majority 
of nine. The day before the investigation commenced, 
Mr. Charles York gave notice that he should enforce 
the standing order for the exclusion of strangers. He 
kept his word ; and the gallery of the House of Com- 
mons was closed every night of the discussion.* Thus 
the public was unable to know the grounds on which 
the attack or the defence of Ministers rested. On the 
first set of resolutions, Ministers had a majority of forty- 
eight ; on the second set, which contained a direct vote 
of censure, a majority of fifty-one; and a resolution, 
approving " of the retention of Walcheren, during the 
entire period it was occupied," was carried by not more 
than twenty-three. 

Lord Chatham, not contented with displaying his in- 
capacity as a general, attempted to interfere with naval 
affairs. He presented a memorial to the King, arraign- 

* This closing of the gallery, proved the necessity of Parliamentary 
Reform. It was an admission that the decision of the House could 
not stand the test of public opinion ; and consequently, that the mem- 
bers did not represent the people. 



( 180 ) 

ing the conduct of Sir Richard Strachan.* This was 
done without the intervention of a responsible minister* 
A motion was made by Mr. Whitbread, for the produc- 
tion of papers, which passed by a majority of seven. 
A motion of censure, modified by Mr. Canning, was 
carried. Lord Chatham then resigned his office of 
master-general of the ordnance. Thus this most un- 
happy business concluded. 

Napoleon was now married to the Emperor of Aus- 
tria's daughter. Hanover was annexed to the new 
kingdom of Westphalia, which was conferred on Je- 
rome Bonaparte. Disputes were becoming more angry 
between Great Britain and America; our currency was 
depreciated, gold had altogether disappeared, nay, even 
silver was scarce. At this period, our only ally was 
the Dey of Algiers. This year was fated to be memo- 
rable. The King, who had been unwell during the 
autumn, was formally declared to be of unsound intel- 
lect at the commencement of November ; he never re- 
covered his faculties. He did not rally, it is believed, 
for even an hour. His life was henceforth that of a 
vegetable : he was dead to the world. His reign had 
virtually closed. Since that of James the Second, it 
was the most disastrous and disgraceful Great Britain 
had witnessed. The personal character of the Monarch 
had great influence on public affairs: his conduct as a 
father, was very peculiar; as a husband, exemplary. 
As a king, as a magistrate, as a politician, his career 
merits grave and attentive consideration. 

* The commander-in-chief of the naval force. It is very singular, 
that whenever a naval and military expedition has been undertaken, a 
disagreement should almost always arise between the Admiral and 
General commanding in chief. It is also to be observed that the 
General is almost invariably in the wrong. 



( 181 ) 



CHAPTER XXXII. 



GEORGE THE THIRD. 



Few monarchs have lived, concerning' whom a greater 
diversity of opinion exists, than George the Third. At 
this day, his memory is revered by many ; by others he 
is hated even in his grave. — The pity which his long- 
illness inspired has softened many asperities ; but the 
deluge of blood, the waste of property, the displacement 
of capital, the accumulation of debt, and above all, the 
savage assaults on the press, with a sanguinary penal 
code, complete the list of calamities which his govern- 
ment inflicted on the people. 

3y Scotland and Ireland, more especially, his me- 
mory must be regarded with unqualified abhorrence. 
The former country had no representatives in Parliament, 
nor any clearly defined code of law, during his reign.* 
The latter groaned under an oppressive penal code, 
which was not relaxed until 1794. She had also to en- 
dure an over-grown church establishment ; and after be- 
ing goaded into rebellion, was deprived of her Parlia- 
ment by corruption the most vile, by oppression the 
most galling, and by the basest treachery. To Irish- 
men, George the Third entertained a decided hatred, 
which, however, he was careful to conceal. The Catho- 
lic religion he loathed, yet feared. Some Protestant 
Jesuits having impressed him with the idea that the co- 

* During the trials in 1794, most extraordinary decisions were 
made by the Scotch Judges. In fact, they made laws themselves, and 
fitted them to the cases they had to try. 

16* 



( 182 ) 

ronation oath imposed an obstacle to Catholic emancipa- 
tion, he wrote several letters on the subject to Lord Ken- 
yon, then Chief Justice. This correspondence was after- 
wards published, and exhibits, in the strongest degree, 
bigotry, ignorance, and fatuity. Scotland he always 
feared : the rebellion of 1745 was not forgotten. But 
the Scotch, being an united people, could not be op- 
pressed like Ireland. Accordingly, the plan was adopt- 
ed of purchasing, with office or title, every Scotchman 
whose virtue was assailable; and as the Scots (un- 
like the Irish) are not subdivided into factions, Scotland, 
being now treated with kindness, flattered, and greatly 
enriched, became tranquil, and calmly abided her time. 

The education he received was of the very worst de- 
scription. His mother, a narrow-minded, unprincipled 
woman, was not without talent ; at least, not without con- 
siderable shrewdness. She had early acquired a great 
influence with her son, which she appears to have re- 
tained to the last. The principles she inculcated were 
of the most arbitrary nature. It has been recorded that 
she constantly said to him "George, be King"; an ad- 
vice which he constantly and systematically acted upon, 
from his accession to the throne until the close of his 
career. His sole aim was to become an absolute mo- 
narch. This object he steadily pursued, and must have 
succeeded, had it not been for the American war, and 
the French revolution. 

His system was, not to be his own Premier, but to re- 
tain no Minister who did not execute his commands. 
Accordingly, the elder Pitt, the Duke of Newcastle, Lord 
North, the younger Pitt, Lord Thurlow, and Lord 
Camden, were all, without scruple, thrown aside, be- 
cause they would not submit to be tools in his hands. 

The only Minister whom he really loved, both as a 
private and public character, was Mr. Addington. Him, 
he parted with most reluctantly ; indeed, he yielded to 
absolute force alone, and was shortly after visited by 
mental derangement. This man he certainly loved ; for 



( 183 ) 

his manners were most agreeable, and he was willing* 
to do every thing- or any thing, as he was commanded. 
The elder Pitt he hated, and betrayed, notwithstanding- 
the glories of the seven years' war, the conquest of Ca- 
nada, and the acquisition of Cuba.* His ardent attach- 
ment to the liberty of the press could not be forgiven. 
He was able and willing* to have preserved America ; 
but he was a sincere Parliamentary Reformer; and 
George the Third preferred any evil to a reform in Par- 
liament, or a repeal of the Test and Corporation Acts. 
Catholic emancipation itself had for him fewer horrors 
than either of the two "revolutionary measures."! 

The younger Pitt saved him from the coalition, and 
prevented the regency from devolving on his son, in 
1789. He also waged war against France, contrary to 
his own conviction ; but the king could never forgive the 
stern control which was exercised over him from 1793 
to 1801 ; during which period he was compelled to dis- 
miss Lord Thurlow, who had been the mainstay of his 
government in the Lords for twenty years, and to entrust 
the great seals to Lord Loughborough, whom, of all 
mankind, he hated the most.J 

* Had Cuba been retained, we might have reconquered America. 
It has often been a matter of astonishment to us, that this island has 
not been purchased from Spain. Had we possession of it, we could at 
any time coerce the Americans by proclaiming emancipation to their 
slaves ; and we should have (according to General Sir Charles James 
Napier) two hundred thousand fighting men supplied by the slave 
population. 

t The true cause why Catholic emancipation was so long resisted, 
was from an apprehension of the Dissenters. The late Bishop of 
Peterborough (Dr. Marsh,) in one of his latest charges, said, that if 
the Catholics were emancipated, the Test and Corporation acts must 
be repealed. The author cannot recollect an instance of a Dissenter 
having a seat on either the English or Irish Bench of Judges. 

t He hated Lord Loughborough for many reasons. When Mr. Wed- 
derburne, he was counsel for Lord Grosvenor against the Duke of Cum- 
berland, in the action of crim. con. and obtained ten thousand pounds da-^ 
mages against him. This was one motive for hatred. Another was, that 
he considered him to have been the legal adviser of the Prince of Wales, 
his Chancellor by anticipation. When, many years after, an account 



( 184 ) 

The obstinacy and perseverance by which he carried 
his purpose into effect were most unremitting. He had 
great powers of persuasion, and had tears at will. We 
have seen how he lured the unfortunate Charles Yorke 
to his destruction; in like manner he deceived Lord 
Camden, persuading him to remain in office after the 
retirement of Lord Chatham, ridding himself of his pre- 
sence on the first opportunity, and then receiving him 
with alacrity as a colleague to the son of Lord Chat- 
ham. His dexterity in effecting his purpose was 
strikingly displayed in three memorable instances. The 
peace of 1763 he concluded to enable him to dismiss 
Lord Chatham ; the war with America he commenced 
against the wishes of Lord North, continued it against 
his remonstrances, yet persuaded him to remain in office ; 
the war in 1793 was forced by him on Pitt, and when he 
found that it must be concluded he violated his promise 
of Catholic Emancipation, by which he rid himself of a 
Minister no longer useful. When forced to admit Pitt 
to office a second time, he bound him by a promise not 
to introduce any measure of relief to the Catholics. 

On the death of Fox, he tried to seduce Lord Gren- 
ville into baseness. When that Minister refused, some 
months later, to give him a similar pledge to that he had 
attained from Pitt, the Ministry was dismissed, and a 
yell of no popery was raised, simply to enable George 
the Third to reign without control. This was his last 
political achievement. During the next three years he 
was absolute; his despotism only ceased when he be- 
came incapable of acting. 

In the distribution of patronage he greatly interfered, 
more so than any other monarch of his dynasty. He 
was too cautious, and too well read in English history 

was brought to the king, that Lord Rosslyn was dead, he desired one of 
his equeries to ride over to his seat, which was not far from Windsor, 
to learn if the news were true ; on being informed that it was certain, 
the monarch exclaimed, " then the greatest rascal in my dominions is 
dead." 



( 185 ) 

to tamper with Judges, or to interfere with their appoint- 
ment ; this business he always confided to his Chancellor, 
and we have seen how anxious he was never to have a 
Keeper of the Great Seal who would run counter to his 
wishes.* In respect to the Bench of Bishops the case 
was widely different; most of the Spiritual Lords were 
indebted to him alone for their promotion. We have 
seen how he deceived both Fox and Pitt as to the See 
of Canterbury, in both instances evading the appoint- 
ment which the Minister desired. 

Not only did he attend to the translation of English 
Bishops, but also to the Irish Episcopal Bench, a consi- 
derable number of whom have been always English- 
men.! He was not content with the absolute nomina- 
tion of Bishops, but he refused the appointment or trans- 
lation of most deserving men strongly recommended. 
Thus, he never would allow Paley to be advanced to 
the mitre, and Watson, although he had rendered great 
services to the cause of religion by his writings (many 
of which are to this day standard works,) was allowed 
to remain Bishop of LlandafF to the conclusion of his 
life. 

The ideas which George the Third entertained of the 
Constitution were very peculiar. He did not scruple, as 
we have seen, to canvass the Peers to vote against the 
second reading of Fox's India Bill, desiring Lord Tem- 
ple to say " that he considered any one who voted for 
it his enemy.' , This was, perhaps, as daring a viola- 
tion of the spirit of the Constitution as ever was perpe- 

* It is very erroneous to suppose that the Judges were removable 
previous to the reign of George the Third ; the act rendering them in- 
dependent of the Crown was passed in the reign of William the Third, 
the act of George the Third was only declaratory. 

t George the Third, we must admit, conferred one blessing on Ire- 
land. He put a stop to Church Government in political matters. 
Primate Stone was the last Archbishop who possessed much political 
power; he was in office at the King's accession; after the Lord Lieu- 
tenant, the Archbishop of Armagh was the most important member of 
the Irish Government. 



( 186 ) 

trated. On the other hand, he never allowed the Prince 
of Wales to hold a higher rank in the army than that of 
Colonel, and when he applied, in 1803, " for efficient 
military rank," the reply was, " that on public grounds 
the King could not permit the Prince of Wales to con- 
sider the army as his profession."* 

It must be admitted, that in this reign, military men 
were not allowed to occupy that prominent and offen- 
sive position in civil polity, which they assumed during 
the government of George the Fourth ; a Field Marshal 
had but little chance of becoming Premier, and there 
was not any instance of four General Officers being 
Cabinet Ministers at the same time. 

The private character of this monarch has been con- 
stantly the theme either of extravagant praise or un- 
qualified censure: neither is just. That he was an ex- 
cellent husband to a most unamiable and distasteful per- 
son cannot be denied ; but as a father his conduct was 
unnatural, despotic, and odious. He appears (in this 
feeling he was joined by the Queen,) to have hated his 
eldest son with a cordiality and sincerity which were 
truly surprising. The truth was that their vices were 
dissimilar and George the Third had no toleration for 
any vice which was not according to his own taste. 
The conduct pursued towards the Prince of Wales in 
bribing him to marry a woman he did not like, and 
whose character was incompatible with his own, can- 
not be too severely censured. To the unhappy Princess 
of Wales he was uniformly kind, and was in truth her 
best friend, but even here there was an alloy ; he did not 
protect her from the Queen, who was her bitter impla- 
cable enemy ; so that it may be surmised that in his 
conduct he was not actuated by a love of justice, but by 
a hatred of his son. 

Much has been said of his religion, but little can be 

* To the King alone credit is due for this very proper determination. 
Mr. Addington was at this time Premier, he certainly never could have 
suggested so constitutional a proceeding. 



( 187 ) 

alleged with truth of his charity. A more illiberal, in- 
tolerant, human being did not exist ; the hatred he bore 
to Catholicism was as nothing when compared with his 
horror of Protestant Dissenters. He knew that the 
stronghold of the Whigs lay among the English and 
Scotch Dissenters. It is singular that a man who was 
sufficiently enlightened to express his distaste to the 
Athanasian Creed,* should on other points be so extreme- 
ly narrow-minded. His acquirements in literature were 
but moderate ; he read a great deal, but his reading w T as 
confined altogether to new publications. He appears to 
have read more with a view of discovering the princi- 
ples of the writers, and of discerning who might be of use 
to him, than from a desire of either useful knowledge or 
innocent entertainment. Accordingly, Dr. Johnson re- 
ceived a pension as the writer of two pamphlets; but 
the author of the Rambler might have signed away his 
existence, unknown and un-rewarded by Royalty, had 
he not been a political partisan. The great work of 
Gibbon was unnoticed, but when the author became a 
Tory a lucrative office was bestowed on him. The 
writings of Burke were never appreciated by George 
the Third until the " reflections on the French revo- 
lution" appeared, and then the splendid apostate was 
rewarded with three thousand pounds a year. Paley 
had rendered great services to the cause of religion by 
his "Evidences" and " Natural Theology," but unfortu- 
nately the " Moral Philosophy" contained some passages 
offensive to royalty and detrimental to absolute govern- 
ment.! Bishop Watson it is believed he would have 

advanced but for the interference of his Queen, who re- 

/• 

* It was the King's practice during Divine Service to read the re- 
sponses aloud; but whenever the Athanasian Creed was " said or sung," 
he closed the book and was silent. 

t Paley was recommended to the King for a bishoprick : the answer 
to the recommendation was, " What! make pigeon Paley a bishop?" 
— alluding to the introduction to Moral Philosophy, 



( 188 ) 

minded him that the bishop had opposed the Regency- 
bill in 1789. Kirwan, the greatest preacher the En- 
glish Church had produced for more than a century, 
was condemned to immortality and penury. 

His patronage of the fine arts was conducted on the 
same principle. West was encouraged because he was 
a courtier, and almost confined himself to scriptural 
subjects. Barry was a Whig, and an Irish Catholic, 
accordingly the King struck his name out of the list of 
Royal Academicians. 

He was a steady patron of the drama, and frequently 
attended the theatre ; but even here his political feelings 
interposed. During the greater part of his reign, Drury 
Lane possessed a company greatly superior to that of 
Covent Garden ; yet to the latter theatre he went much 
more frequently than to the former, when Sheridan be- 
came one of its proprietors. The place in which he 
appeared to the greatest advantage was at a levee or at 
a drawing-room : there alone he sunk his political feel- 
ings, and was equally courteous to Whig and Tory; 
even the profligate demagogue Wilkes was received 
with urbanity. 

His memory was so extremely tenacious, and his 
store of anecdotes so considerable, that he was enabled 
to hold a conversation with every one about his own af- 
fairs, in which he always appeared to feel an interest. 
He was jocular, without losing dignity ; was uniformly 
courteous, kind in his manners, dignified without haugh- 
tiness, apparently sincere and humane. 

Had he been heir to a dukedom instead of a throne, 
he would have been the pride of his order and an orna- 
ment to his country ; but the determination to become 
an absolute monarch influenced every action and every 
feeling — to attain this object every thing was sacrificed ; 
he had pawned his very soul to purchase despotism. 

Between George the Third and Charles the First there 
were many points of resemblance. The same bigotry, 



( 189 ) 

the same obstinacy, treachery, insincerity, cruelty, and 
despotic principles are to be found in both. George pur- 
sued his object by influence — Charles by straining the 
prerogative of the crown. The former acted through 
a corrupt Parliament — the latter tried to dispense with 
Parliament altogether ; both were personally brave — 
both were treacherous to the last degree : but the treach- 
ery was different in each. Charles would never have 
lured a man to destruction as George did the ill-fated 
Yorke. On the other hand, George would never have 
abandoned a minister to his fate as Charles did the un- 
fortunate, guilty Strafford. Had Earl Temple been im- 
peached (as he deserved) for his canvass of the Peers in 
1784, his royal master would not have abandoned him. 

Upon the whole, we must pronounce George the Third 
to have been the very worst monarch of his dynasty, 
and his reign to have been productive of the direst ca- 
lamities. America was lost ; Ireland bought* sold, and 
twice invaded ; our allies beaten to the earth ; Europe 
deluged with blood; the national debt quadrupled; En- 
gland within one week of bankruptcy. The penal code 
during this reign became the most sanguinary in Europe ; 
the currency of the country was debased ; one third of / 
the landed property of the country changed hands ; the 
ancient nobility impoverished and degraded; a mercan- 
tile aristocracy called into existence ;. and an entire legis- 
lature brought to the shambles and sold. For all these 
calamities we are to be consoled by the religion, deco- 
rum, and simple habits of the Monarch. It would have 
been better if he could have afforded to have some vices, 
and had committed fewer offences. 

We perhaps live too near his time to write impartially, 
or to decide with equanimity and calmness ; but (in our 
humble opinion) from a calm review of this ill-omened 
reign, it would be difficult to form any opinion of the 
character of George the third but the most unfavourable. 
In religion he was a bigot; his soul was despotic; his 
heart false;, foe, knew not love nor friendship, pity or 
17 



( 190 ) 

remorse. Crafty, subtle, vindictive ; he never was sur-. 
prised into sincerity, but when his faculties gave way. 

Had he been an Emperor of Russia his name would 
have descended to posterity as an enlightened despot, a 
humane ruler. As a king of Great Britain, he ranks 
among the very worst of her monarchs ; the hollow- 
ness of Charles the First without his liberality or taste : 
the bigotry of James the Second without his sincerity. 



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By various hands. Edited by Charles Dickens, Esq., author of " Oliver 
Twist," *Nicholas Nickleby,*' &c, in Two Volumes. 



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A TEXT BOOK OF 

PRACTICAL GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY, 

With instructions for the qualitative analysis of Minerals, 
BY JOSHUA TRIMMER, F.G.S., 

WITH TWO HUNDRED AND TWELVE WOOD CUTS, 

A handsome Octavo volume, bound in embossed cloth. 

This is a systematic introduction to Mineralogy, and Geology, admirably 
calculated to instruct the student in those sciences. The organic remains 
of the various formations are well illustrated by numerous figures, which 
are drawn with great accuracy. 



THE BRIDGE WATER TREATISES ON THE ?OWER, WIS- 
DOM AND GOODNESS OF GOD, as manifested in the Creation, 
containing Bell, Chalmers, Kidd, Whewell, Prout, Kirby, Roget and 
Buckland, with numerous engravings, wood cuts, and maps. The 
whole series forms a beautiful set of books, in 7 volumes, 8vo, to be had 
in handsome cloth or half bound with calf backs and corners. 



The following Three Treatises can be had separately : 

GEOLOGY AND MINERALOGY, considered with reference to Na- 
tural Theology, by the Rev. Wm. Buckland, D. D., Canon of Christ 
Church, and Reader in Geology and Mineralogy in the University of 
Oxford ; with nearly 100 copper-plates and large coloured maps ; a new 
edition, from the late London edition, with supplementary notes and 
additional plates. 

ROGETS' ANIMAL AND VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY ; with 
nearly 500 wood cuts, in two volumes ; second American edition. 

THE HISTORY, HABITS AND INSTINCTS OF ANIMALS ; 

by Rev. Wm. Kirby, M. A., F. R. S. ; illustrated by numerous copper- 
plate engravings. 



A POPULAR TREATISE ON 

VEGETABLE PHYSIOLOGY; 

Published under the auspices of the Society for the Promotion of 
Popular Instruction ; 

WITH NUMEROUS WOOD CUTS, 

In One Volume, 12mo. 



THE MILLWRIGHT AND MILLER'S GUIDE. By Oliver Evans. 
The Tenth Edition with Additions and Corrections, by the Professor 
of Mechanics in the Franklin Institute of Pennsylvania ; and a Descrip- 
tion of an Improved Merchant Flour Mill. With Engravings. By C. 
& O. Evans, Engineers. 
This is a practical work, and has had a very extended sale. 



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THE SECOND SERIES OP MISS STRICKLAND'S MVES OF 
THE Q,UEENS OP ENGLAND ; containing Elizabeth of York, 
surnamed the Good Queen of Henry the VII., the Six Queens of 
Henry the VIII., and Queen Mary the First, in 2 vols., 12mo. 

LORD BROUGHAM'S HISTORICAL SKETCHES OF 
STATESMEN WHO FLOURISHED IN THE TIME OF 
GEORGE HI.— Containing Lord Chatham, Lord North, Mr. Fox, 
Mr. Sheridan, Mr. Pitt, Mr. Canning, Mr. Wilberforce, Mr. Grattan, 
Washington, Franklin, Charles Carroll, Napoleon, Talleyrand, La- 
fayette, &c., 2 vols. Fourth edition. 

THE UNITED IRISHMEN, their Lives and Times, by R. R. Madden, 
M. D., author of Travels in the East, &c. ; in two volumes, 12mo. 

ROMANTIC BIOGRAPHY OF THE AGE OF ELIZABETH, 

or Sketches of Life from the By-ways of History by the Benedictine 
Brethren of Glendalough. Edited by W. Cook Taylor, LL. D. &c. 
of Trinity College, Dublin, author of "The Natural History of 
Society," in 2 volumes, 12mo, 

LIVES OF EMINENT LITERARY AND SCIENTIFIC MEN 
OF ITALY. By Mrs. Shelley, Sir David Brewster, James Montgomery 
and others. Containing Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Lorenzo de 
Medici, Galileo, Tasso, &c, &c, 2 vols. 

A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE AND WRITINGS OF MRS. 
HEMANS. By her Sister, Mrs. Hughes. 1 vol., 12mo. 

THE MOST EMINENT FRENCH WRITERS. By Mrs. Shelley 

and others. Containing Racine, Fenelon, Rousseau, Moliere, Cor- 

neile, &c, &c. 2 vols. 
SKETCHES OF CONSPICUOUS LIVING CHARACTERS OF 

FRANCE. Containing Thiers, Chauteaubriand, Laffitte, Guizor, La 

Marline, &c, &c. Translated by R. M. Walsh. 
THE CRITICAL AND MISCELLANEOUS WRITINGS OF 

LORD BROUGHAM, with a sketch of his Character. Two vols., 

royal 12mo. 
THE CRITICAIi AND MISCELLANEOUS "WRITINGS OP SIR 

EDWARD LYTTON BULWER, Author of " Pelham," "The 

Disowned," &c. 
LIFE OF THOMAS JEFFERSON. By Prof. Tucker, of the University 

of Virginia ; 2 vols., 8vo. 
GEISLER'S TEXT BOOK OF ECCLESIASTICAL HISTORY. 

Translated from the third German edition. By Francis Cunningham. 

3 vols., 8vo. 
AN INQUIRY INTO THE VALIDITY OF THE BRITISH 

CLAIM TO A RIGHT OF VISITATION AND SEARCH 

of American vessels suspected to be engaged in the African Slave 

Trade. By Henry Wheaton, LL. D., Minister of the United States at 

the Court of Berlin. Author of " Elements of International Law," 

&c. In one volume. 
LOCKHART'S LIFE OF SIR WALTER SCOTT, a fine edition 

with a portrait, in 7 vols., 12mo. 
THE COURT AND TIMES OF FREDERICK THE GREAT, 

edited with an introduction, by Thomas Campbell, Esq., author of the 

Pleasures of Hope, The Life of Petrarch, &c. ; 2 vols., 12mo. 
MADAME DE SEVIGNE AND HER CONTEMPORARIES, 

comprising sketches of above one hundred of the most eminent persons 

of her times, 2 vols., 12mo. 



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MRS. ELLIS'S TEMPERANCE TALES, or Hints to those who 
would Make Home Happy, by Mrs. Ellis, late Miss Stickney, author 
of The Women of England, &c, &c Containing — The Dangers of 
Dining Out, Confessions of a Maniac, Somerville Hall, The Rising 
Tide, The Favourite Child, First Impressions, and The Minister's 
Family, in 2 vol., 12mo. 

" The tendency of this work is one of the best and noblest, and the scenes 
and persons described are, in most instances it is believed, Portraits, aiming, 
as it does, at the correction of a too prevalent vice, that of intemperance, it 
is expected to command, amongst the serious and thinking part of the 
community, the same popularity that Pickwick and Humphrey's Clock 
have done in their peculiar circle." — Publishers Circular. 

KEBLE'S CHRISTIAN YEAR. Thoughts in verse, for Sundays and 
Holidays, throughout the year. The third edition, in one neat volume- 

THE CHILD'S CHRISTIAN YEAR. Hymns for every Sunday and 
Holiday, compiled for the use of Parochial schools, first American from 
the second London edition, adapted more especially to pastoral and do- 
mestic teachings; a small pocket volume to match the ' Christian Year.' 

BISHOP HEBER'S POETICAL WORKS. Complete in one neat 
volume, to match ' Keble's Christian Year.' 

TALES AND SOUVENIRS OF A RESIDENCE IN EUROPE. 
By the Lady of a distinguished Senator of Virginia, In one volume, 
extra embossed cloth. 

THE QUEEN OF FLOWERS, OR MEMOIRS OF THE ROSE, 
a beautiful little volume, with coloured plates, and handsomely done up 
with gilt edges. 

THE SENTIMENTS OF FLOWERS, OR THE LANGUAGE 
OF FLORA. Embracing an account of nearly 300 different Flowers 
with their powers in Language. With coloured plates. A small volume, 
embossed cloth, gilt edges. 

THE LANGUAGE OF FLOWERS, with illustrative Peetry. To 
which is now first added The Calendar of Flowers. Revised by the 
Editor of ' The Forget-Me-Not.' The sixth American edition, with 
coloured plates. Handsomely done up in embossed leather, gilt edges. 

THE YOUNG WIFE'S BOOK. A Manual of religious, moral, and 
domestic duties. A small pocket volume. 

THE YOUNG HUSBAND'S BOOK. A Manual of the duties, moral, 
religious, and domestic, jnposed by the relations of married life. A 
small volume, to match ' The Young Wife's Book.' 

STORIES FOR VERY YOUNG CHILDREN, illustrated by numer- 
ous wood cuts, containing Winter, Spring. Summer, and Autumn, by 
Mrs. Marcet, author of Conversations on Chemistry. 

LAWS OF ETIQUETTE, OR RULES AND REFLECTIONS 
FOR CONDUCT IN SOCIETY. By a Gentleman. A small 
pocket volume. Many thousands of which have been sold. 

ETIQUETTE FOR THE LADIES. With Hints on the Preservation, 
Improvement, and Display of Female Beauty. A small volume to 
match the Laws of Etiquette. 

THE CANONS OF GOOD BREEDING ; by the author of ' The 
Laws of Etiquette ;' a small pocket volume in embossed cloth. 



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A LIBRARY EDITION OF THE 

SELECT WORKS OF HENRY FIELDING, 

WITH A MEMOIR OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR, 
BY SIR WALTER SCOTT: 

And an Essay on his Life and Genius, by Arthur Murphy, Esq., with a 

Portrait. Bound in One or Two Volumes, and in various 

styles, to suit the Purchasers. 

ALSO, TO MATCH THE ABOVE, THE 

SELECT WORKS OF TOBIAS SMOLLET; 

With a Memoir of the Life and Writings of the Author, 

BY SIR WALTER SCOTTJ 

With a Portrait. Bound in One or Two Volumes, to match Fielding. 

STANLEY THORN, 

BY HENRY COCKTON, 

Author of " Valentine Vox, the Ventriloquist," &c, with numerous Illus- 
trations, designed by Cruikshank, Leech, &c, and Engraved by 
Yeager. In one Royal Octavo Volume, bound in embossed cloth. 



THIS FOE€12I.ii» TOWER; 

OR NINE STORIES OF CHINA; 

Compiled from original sources ; with Illustrations. In One Volume. 



GUY FAWKES; 

OR, THE GUNPOWDER TREASON; 

AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE, 

BY WILLIAM HARRISON AINSWORTH, 

Author of "The Tower of London," "Jack Sheppard," &c., in One 
Volume, 8vo., with Plates. 



BEAUCHAMPE, OR THE KENTUCKY TRAGEDY, by the 

Author of " Richard Hurdis," &c, in Two Volumes, 12mo. 

CONFESSIONS, OR THE BLIND HEART, by the Author of "The 
Kinsmen, &c, &c„ in Two Volumes, 12mo. 

ROB OF THE BOWL, A Legend of St. Inigoes, by the Author of " Horse 
Shoe Robinson," in Two Volumes, 12mo. 

THE DAMSEL OF DARIEN, by the Author of " The Yemassee," 
••Guy Rivers," &c, in Two Volumes, 12mo. 

THE ADVENTURES OF ROBIN DAY, by the Author of " Nick of 
the Woods," &c, in Two Volumes, 12mo. 



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WORKS FOR 
SCHOOLS, COISBGES, &C. 



A HEW EDITION OF 

ARNOTT'S ELEMENTS OF PHYSICS, OR NATURAL PHI- 
LOSOPHY, GENERAL AND MEDICAL. Written for universal 
use, in plain, or non-technical language. Complete in 1 vol. Revised 
and corrected from the last English edition, with additions, by Isaac 
Hays, M. D. A work used extensively in various seminaries. 

HERSCHEL'S ASTRONOMY, a new edition, with a preface, and a 

Series of Questions for the examination of Students, with Engravings, 
by S. C. Walker, in 1 vol., 12mo. 

BREWSTER'S OPTICS, a new edition, with an appendix, and numerous 
cuts, by Professor Btiche, in 1 vol., 12mo. 

BUTLER'S ATLAS OF ANCIENT GEOGRAPHY, consisting of 
21 coloured maps, with a complete accentuated index. 

BUTLER'S GEOGRAPHIA CLASSICA, or the Application of 
Ancient Geography to the Classics ; 4th American edition, with Ques- 
tions, 1 vol. 



Bolmar^s French Series. 

New editions of the following works, by A. Bolmar, forming in connec- 
tion with " Bolmar's Levizac," a complete series for the acquisition of the 
French language. 

A SELECTION OF ONE HUNDRED PERRIN'S FABLES, 

accompanied by a Key, containing the text, a literal and free transla- 
tion, arranged in such a manner as to point out the difference between 
the French and English idiom, &c, in 1 vol., 12mo. 

A COLLECTION OF COLLOQUIAL PHRASES, on every topic 
necessary to maintain conversation, arranged under different heads with 
numerous remarks on the peculiar pronunciation and uses of various 
words ; the whole so disposed as considerably to facilitate the acquisi- 
tion of a correct pronunciation of the French, 1 vol., 18mo. 

LES AVENTURES DE TELEMAQUE PAR FENELON, in 1 

vol., I2mo., accompanied by a Key to the first eight books, in 1 vol., 
12mo. y containing like the Fables, the text, a literal and free translation, 
intended as a sequel to the Fables. Either volume sold separately. 

ALL THE FRENCH VERBS, both regular and irregular, in a small 
volume. 



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